I love food. I also love whales. (Just to clarify, I don’t like eating whales.) I guess you could say my whole love affair with whales started a couple summers ago when I was a Whale Watching Intern for the Aquarium of the Pacific, in Long Beach.
A blue whale spouting, with the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the background
Blue whales, as the largest animals on the planet and, indeed, the largest animals to ever live, eat a lot. Why they picked krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans, to eat seems a mystery at first until you understand just how many plentiful krill are in the ocean. Though individuals are only a couple centimeters (less than an inch) long, krill are abundant worldwide. One species, Euphausia superba, the Antarctic Krill, Wikipedia states,
…sometimes reach densities of 10,000–30,000 individual animals per cubic metre. … It is a key species in the Antarctic ecosystem and is, in terms of biomass, probably the most abundant animal species on the planet (approximately 500 million tonnes).
How much is 500 million tons of krill? If you were to weigh it out, it would be approximately the same as 14 million humans. That’s right, twice the biomass of the current population of the planet.
How much do whales eat? An adult can eat 3,600kg of krill a day, which works out to about 40 million individuals. Usually the whales have to dive hundreds of feet to get to the krill, as krill are vertical migrators, spending the day deep in the water column and swimming up to the surface to feed at night. On occasions when krill are plentiful at the surface, however, you can witness some spectacular lunge feeding.
Lunge feeding at the surface
Anyway, I think most people would agree with me when I say whales are just cool. (I would go so far as to say fascinating, but not everyone would agree.) I highly recommend whale watching to anyone, assuming you feel comfortable on boats. Most good whale watching programs will want to let you know when the best chance of sightings are — check for a blog or just chat to the naturalists before signing up for a cruise. If you’re in Southern California, I would recommend late summer for going out to catch the blue whales. There are other whales at other times of the year, though: grey whales in winter and sometimes even orcas!
Orcas off the coast of Long Beach, CA (Photo: Branwyn Lee)
You can check out more great photos and updates on the whales from the Aquarium of the Pacific blog. (You can also check out their internships here.)
My love affair with food started much earlier, though. When I was a tot, my parents had to put down a painting dropcloth in whatever room I was fed in because I loved my food. I loved my food all over the floor, all over the walls, myself… Well, anyway, I like to eat. As Dylan Moran once said, “Apparently, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. But skinny tastes like celery, and not skinny tastes like cake.”
Celebrating the 4th of July on Wednesday I tried to keep up with the blues and match their voracious summer appetites. I did my best. Here’s what I ate:
1 Plate of carnitas, black beans, and rice
Lots of corn chips with guacamole and salsa
1 Slice of lemon pie
1 Hot dog
1 Taco
1 Ice cream sandwich
1.5 Cupcakes
1 Bowl of strawberries
0.00kg of Krill
How did I do?
Indy Sea 