Unknown Population of Blue Whales Discovered in Waters of Southern Chile

"The numbers that were left after the commercial whaling was so low that everybody thought that it was over for the blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete.

The Blue Whale Center, the World Wildlife Fund and others are lobbying the government of Chile to declare the entire Gulf of Corcovado a Marine Protected Area.

(ABC/AP Photo)
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Unexpected Discovery

Almost as amazing as these whales themselves is the story of how this population was discovered. In 1997, a group of scientists boarded two ships to comb the 2,500 miles of Chile's pacific coastline and do a count of blue whales. In that entire time, they found just 40 whales — "it was bad news," says Hucke-Gaete. But then a small group of those scientists decided to soak up the stunning scenery. They hopped on a cruise ship to enjoy the trip home. That ship passed through the Gulf of Corcovado.

"When they were entering the gulf, they started seeing blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete, his voice filled with excitement as he recounts the unexpected discovery. "And they saw another one, and then they finally saw 60 in less than four hours."

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It seemed the scientists had stumbled on a large and unknown population of blue whales, but it wasn't easy to confirm their findings. It took Hucke-Gaete six years to raise the money to come back the Gulf to confirm that what they saw in 1997 wasn't just a one-time occurrence. Each year since 2003 the scientists have been in Corcovado from January to April — the Southern Summer — and so have the whales. They have learned that the whales come to this vast Gulf to feed and nurse their young. Corcovado is a previously unknown refuge that may help save the species.

"The significance of the place is that this is a place they feed; this is a place that is important to them and not only for the adults, it's for calves," explains Hucke-Gaete. "If we find calves, that means the population is recovering and that carries on a big responsibility for us: we need to take care of this place."

Normally whales have to be studied at deep sea and great expense. Corcovado offers a unique opportunity to track the whales close to land for an extended time.

Hucke-Gaete says it's difficult to study whales in part "because they spend 90-98 percent below the surface. So it's really, really difficult. It takes lots of time and lots of patience." With meager budgets that are mostly consumed by gas that costs $9 a gallon, the scientists spend their days studying the habits and habitat of the whales, photographing and indexing each whale — no two dorsal fins are the same — and collecting tiny samples of their skin. The samples, he says, are "enough to tell us what population this whale belongs to, to know the sex of the animal, to identify it genetically like a forensics lab, that we identify these animals."