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WHALES have made themselves at home off the coast of Catalunya – a total of 222 have been spotted this spring alone, nearly double the number seen in the sea-mammal 'feeding zones' identified by conservationists since they started off the 'Rorqual Project' in 2013.
Of those seen in spring 2021, around 75 have been identified through drone footage and the rest sighted by humans.
The association Edmaktub, which has been focusing on whale presence in the western Mediterranean these last eight years – especially in Catalunya and the Balearic Islands, where they are thought to settle for weeks at a time to feed – this year so far has been excellent for whale-spotting, after very few visited Spain's shores in 2019 due to a drought, and 2020 was written off as marine biologists could not go out searching for them as a consequence of the pandemic and lockdown.
But the high rainfall and low temperatures in winter and early spring in Mediterranean Spain meant an increase in plankton, particularly krill, in the area, for rorqual or fin whales to feed on.
Drones have been employed this year for the first time, says the association, meaning close-up footage of 75 whales this year has far exceeded those caught on camera in the last two 'good' years for sightings – 2018, with 45, and 2017, with 43.
Three satellite markers have been set up to follow the fin whale population's movements, and these have been key to discovering where the feeding grounds are, and how May seems to be the month when numbers are highest.
Fishermen off the coast of Catalunya have been huge allies in the project, informing Edmaktub whenever they see a whale.
Some of the biggest threats to the survival of Mediterranean whales are human-generated, such as collisions with large boats, and people out on yachts, catamarans and speedboats acting carelessly and disturbing them, Edmaktub explains.
The association stresses that laws are in place to protect whales, dolphins and other sea creatures, and which make it illegal to sail up close to them.
About half of the whales identified have been seen more than once this spring, and nearly one in three have been seen in previous years, too – including one very regular visitor, catalogued as BP005 and nicknamed Bruixa ('Witch'), even though he is male.
Bruixa has been seen in seven different years, and in 2021, has been spotted five times.
In June and July, the whales which settle in Catalunya to feed start to head south, towards the Atlantic, where most are believed to be from, although it is also thought some of those seen off mainland Spain's north-east are from the rorqual population which spends its summer in the Ligurian Sea and follows its Atlantic friends towards the southern hemisphere.
Between summer and approximately September, whales can be seen from the shores of various parts of eastern Spain, particularly Cabo de Palos (Murcia Region), Cabo de Gata (Almería province), Dénia and Jávea (northern Alicante province) and, later in the year, in the Strait of Gibraltar.
In some of these parts, the whales come close enough to dry land that they can be clearly sighted by people on the beach, especially in the Dénia and Jávea area, where their 'traffic' is so prolific that the Cabo de San Antonio on the border of the two towns has been dubbed by marine biologists as 'the Whale-Way' – the Autopista de las Ballenas or, literally, the 'Whale Motorway'.
Only a week ago, bathers on a beach just north of Dénia, close to the Valencia province border, saw two fin whales just metres from the shore which were easily identifiable from film footage without having zoomed in.
The above photograph of a mum whale and her calf, by Edmaktub, was taken in late April 2017 in the Costa Garraf area of Catalunya.
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