Humphrey the Whale
Encyclopedia
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
in history, having errantly entered San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
twice, departing from his Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
migration. This behavior is not normal for any Humpback whale, and Humphrey became well known on national television and press coverage for his misadventures in the years 1985 and 1990. Humphrey is a member of the species Megaptera novaeangliae, and each episode of his bay excursions resulted in a dramatic estuarine rescue of this giant mammal by the Marine Mammal Center, based in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, assisted by the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
and hundreds of other volunteers. Humphrey (sometimes known in the media as Humphrey the humpback whale) is 40 feet (12 m) long. Humphrey’s last sighting was in the vicinity of the Farallon Islands
Farallon Islands
The Farallon Islands, or Farallones , are a group of islands and sea stacks in the Gulf of the Farallones, off the coast of San Francisco, California, USA. They lie outside the Golden Gate and south of Point Reyes, and are visible from the mainland on clear days...
in the year 1991.
Humphrey's Journeys Inland
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
s. Each evening the Bay area audience would tune in for the latest update on Humphrey’s plight, until – even more amazingly - he swam up the Sacramento River
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California in the United States. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over , empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and...
into a freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...
habitat. Then national media coverage began and the whole country watched the ensuing story. The whale, first spotted at Oakland's Outer Harbor October 10, 1985, swam up the Carquinez Strait
Carquinez Strait
The Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait in northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay...
, the Sacramento River and under the Rio Vista Bridge to a dead-end slough 69 miles (111 km) from the ocean.
After numerous attempts failed to coax him back to the ocean, Humphrey's inability to find his way out of the slough kept the nation and eventually the world enthralled. Several weeks of being trapped in the fresh water of the Sacramento Delta brought signs of physical stress in the whale. His skin was graying and he was becoming more and more listless. None of the traditional herding techniques were working, and Humphrey appeared to be dying.
As a last ditch effort to save the whale, Dr. Bernie Krause
Bernie Krause
Bernard L. Krause is an American musician, soundscape recordist and bio-acoustician, who coined the term biophony and helped define the structure of soundscape ecology. Krause holds a Ph.D. in bioacoustics from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati.-Biography:Bernie Krause was born in 1938...
, an acoustician, offered the recordings he had made of humpback whale feeding songs as a possible way to lure him out. No one knew if this would work, but it was their last shot at saving Humphrey. However, to get the sounds into the water required a powerful speaker and amplification system that only the Navy was likely to have. Krausel contacted Greg Pless who was in charge of the underwater acoustics research laboratory for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where one of the few high-power J-11 underwater transducers existed in the country. Greg and his colleague Dale Galarowicz quickly gained Navy permission and rushed the equipment to Rio Vista, CA where Humphrey was last seen.
Early the next morning, the equipment was loaded onto the private yacht, Boot Legger, donated by its owner for the rescue effort. Directed to the location in the slough where Humphrey was last seen, the speaker was lowered over the side of the boat, the sounds were played, and everyone stood quietly while the eerie songs reverberated through the hull. Suddenly, Humphrey emerged from the water at the bow of the ship right where the speaker was playing, and gazed at the startled crew. The captain quickly started down the river with Humphrey close in tow. With the assistance of numerous fish and wildlife agencies, including the Army's 481'st Transportation Company (Heavy Boat), the crew led him the many miles back down the Sacramento river, alternately playing and not playing the whale songs to keep his interest.
As they approached the San Francisco Bay and the water gained in salinity, Humphrey became visibly excited and began sounding (diving deeply) to everyone’s delight and amazement. The air was filled with helicopters, and the river banks were lined with thousands of spectators all cheering Humphrey on to freedom. Though the crew lost sight of him that night, they picked him back up in the morning and led him out through the Golden Gate bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
, to the freedom of the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
November 4, 1985, at 4:36 p.m., where he promptly headed South to parts unknown.
The town of Rio Vista
Rio Vista, California
Rio Vista is a city located in the eastern end of Solano County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento River Delta region. The population was 7,360 at the 2010 census....
considers the Humphrey visit to have given it national recognition. To this date there is a granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
marker at the harbor commemorating the visit. and many local restaurant menus remark on his stay in Rio Vista.
Humphrey stayed a considerable time in 1990 in the embayment immediately north of Sierra Point
Sierra Point, Brisbane, California
Sierra Point is a small peninsula that extends outward into the San Francisco Bay, located in Brisbane, San Mateo County, California . It is at approximately . There are several class A office buildings at Sierra Point including the Dakin Building and the Hitachi Building...
in Brisbane, California
Brisbane, California
Brisbane is a small city located in the northern part of San Mateo County, California on the lower slopes of San Bruno Mountain. It is on the northeastern edge of South San Francisco, next to the San Francisco Bay and near the San Francisco International Airport.The population was 4,282 as of...
where occupants of the Dakin Building
Dakin Building
The Dakin Building is an architectural award-winning class A office building on the San Francisco Bay in Brisbane, California. Serving as a corporate headquarters building for several companies of national prominence, it was built from the profits of the Garfield character whose licensed products...
could observe his antics. Humphrey became beached on a mudflat
Bay mud
Bay mud consists of thick deposits of soft, unconsolidated silty clay, which is saturated with water; these soil layers are situated at the bottom of certain estuaries, which are normally in temperate regions that have experienced cyclical glacial cycles...
in San Francisco Bay to the north of Sierra Point
Sierra Point, Brisbane, California
Sierra Point is a small peninsula that extends outward into the San Francisco Bay, located in Brisbane, San Mateo County, California . It is at approximately . There are several class A office buildings at Sierra Point including the Dakin Building and the Hitachi Building...
and to the south of Candlestick Park. He was extricated from the mudflat with a large cargo net and support from the Marine Mammal Center and a U.S. Coast Guard boat.
This time, he was successfully guided back to the Pacific Ocean using a "sound net" in which people in a flotilla
Flotilla
A flotilla , or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class of warship, such as frigates, destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, gunboats, or minesweepers...
of boats made unpleasant noises behind the whale by banging on steel pipes, a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese fishing technique known as "oikomi." Simultaneously, the attractive sounds of humpback whales preparing to feed were broadcast from a boat headed towards the open ocean. Researchers Louis Herman
Louis Herman
Louis Herman is a researcher of dolphin sensory abilities, dolphin cognition, and humpback whales. He is currently professor in the Department of Psychology and a cooperating faculty member of the Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa...
and Bernie Krause led a team of scientists who used sound recordings of natural whale feeding vocalizations
Animal communication
Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, is sometimes called Zoosemiotics has played an important part in the...
to guide Humphrey back to safety. These sounds were produced for a swimming trajectory of fifty miles (80 km) until Humphrey reached the Pacific Ocean sometimes attaining speeds of thirty miles per hour (48 km/h). Humphrey has been seen only once since the second misadventure, at the Farallon Islands in 1991. A film “Humphrey the Lost Whale” was produced and opened at the Tybee Island Marine Science Center, Savannah, Georgia on September 24, 2005.
Description
Humphrey and other humpback whales can readily be identified by a stocky body with well defined humps and black upper elements. His head and lower jawJaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...
are covered with knobs called tubercle
Tubercle
A tubercle is generally a wart-like projection, but it has slightly different meaning depending on which family of plants or animals it is used to refer to....
s, which are actually hair follicle
Hair follicle
A hair follicle is a skin organ that produces hair. Hair production occurs in phases, including a growth phase , and cessation phase , and a rest phase . Stem cells are principally responsible for the production of hair....
s and are characteristic of the species. The tail flukes, which are lifted high in the dive
Underwater diving
Underwater diving is the practice of going underwater, either with breathing apparatus or by breath-holding .Recreational diving is a popular activity...
sequence, have wavy rear edges.
Humphrey's long black and white tail fin
Fin
A fin is a surface used for stability and/or to produce lift and thrust or to steer while traveling in water, air, or other fluid media, . The first use of the word was for the limbs of fish, but has been extended to include other animal limbs and man-made devices...
, which is approximately one third of his body length, and pectoral
Pectoral
Pectoral may refer to:* Pectoral cross, a cross worn on the chest* a decorative, usually jeweled version of a gorget* Pectoral , often iconographic with hieroglyphs* Pectoralis major muscle, commonly referred to as "pectorals" or "pecs"...
fins have unique patterns that enable scientists to positively identify Humphrey, in a similar way to the bill markings on Bewick's Swan
Bewick's Swan
The Tundra Swan is a small Holarctic swan. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species, Cygnus bewickii of the Palaearctic and the Whistling Swan, C. columbianus proper, of the Nearctic...
s. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain the evolution of the Humpback's pectoral fins, proportionally the longest fins of any cetacean. The two most accepted hypotheses are that the higher maneuverability afforded by long fins is a significant evolutionary advantage, or that the increased surface is useful for temperature control when migrating between warm and cold climates.
The humpback whale is a mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
which belongs to the baleen whale
Baleen whale
The Baleen whales, also called whalebone whales or great whales, form the Mysticeti, one of two suborders of the Cetacea . Baleen whales are characterized by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, rather than having teeth. This distinguishes them from the other suborder of cetaceans,...
suborder. It is a large whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
: an adult usually ranges between 12–16 m (40–50 ft) long and weighs approximately 36,000 kilograms (79,000 pounds), or 36 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s (40 short ton
Short ton
The short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...
s). It is well known for its breaching (leaping out of the water), its unusually long front fins, and its complex whale song
Whale song
Whale sounds are the sounds made by whales and which are used for different kinds of communication.The word "song" is used to describe the pattern of regular and predictable sounds made by some species of whales, notably the Humpback Whale...
. The humpback whale lives in oceans and seas around the world, and is regularly sought out by whale-watchers
Whale watching
Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and other cetaceans in their natural habitat. Whales are watched most commonly for recreation but the activity can also serve scientific or educational purposes. A 2009 study, prepared for IFAW, estimated that 13 million people went whale watching...
.