Incredible journey of the giants: scientists and tourist alike are helping raise awareness of the importance of humpback whales by observing their migratory routes from Antarctica to Panama.

• Author: Montesinos, Elisa

Pursued for ceramics by whalers, the endangered humpback whales, or yubartas, of the southern hemsphere are slowly making a comeback Migrants from the salty seas, they swim hundreds of miles to feed at the Antarctic coasts Once they gain enough energy and weight, they will swim hundreds more miles to the tropics to court, mate, and give birth to new offspring As Chilean scientists discovered, however, about 150 of them also undertake a much shorter journey to feast in the waters of the Straits of Magellan. In the process, they become the main attraction in a unique experience of tourism with science-related goals.

Eleven passengers of various nationalities board the Esturion II at a bay near Punta Arenas in the southernmost point of Chile. They will travel seven hours to realize a dream: that of seeing the whales that come to feast in the Straits of Magellan during the Austral summer. Specifically, the whales are arriving off the shores of Carlos Ill Island where five years ago, the Chilean government decided to create the country's first marine park. The park was christened with the name of Francisco Coloane, in honor of the novelist and navigator who wrote of his travels in these areas. It is the destination of a number of species who engage there in what our tour guide calls a "feeding frenzy." The whales require from one to four ions of fish a day. This would help explain their size; humpbacks can measure 45 feet long and weigh 40 tons.

Most of the 4,000-5,000 humpbacks that reproduce in Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador travel to Antarctica for feeding. But the marine biologists who founded the Whalesound enterprise discovered that some 150 of them were coming to the island to feed each season, saving themselves 1200 miles of travel.

Hundreds of miles away, in Japan, whale meat is a succulent dish served in specialized restaurants and sold on the black market. Hunting for scientific purposes is a legal loophole that Japan uses to avoid the moratorium on commercial whale hunting in place since 1986. Having rejected and questioned the moratorium, respectively, Norway and Iceland are also not bound to obeying the moratorium. They choose, instead, to establish I their own mutual capture quotas. Just last season, the Japanese fleet captured about 1,000 whales of various species--mostly, minke whales--whose meat is sold in markets at a price that Greenpeace calculates as between US$21 and US$78 a pound.

Some protests and more radical actions have kept Norway. Iceland, and Japan from reaching their entire capture goat this year. Since 1985, these three countries--plus Korea at one point--have hunted and killed 11,358 whales, according to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The Commission also estimates that 800 million dollars are brought in each year around the world through an activity that values the live animals: whale-watching tourism. "Dead whales bring ill income once, you kill them. Tourism income is less, but it can be sustained throughout the entire course of the life of the animal, which in tile case of humpback whales means about 60 to 70 years," says Juan Capella, who is a founding member of Whalesound, along with fellow marine biologist Jorge Gibbons.

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Cape Froward, the southernmost point of the continent is marked with a cross. "This trip is about much more than just the whales. If you look at these untouched passages, you can imagine that Magellan saw them just this way," says Derek, a young biologist hired by Whalesound researchers to guide passengers and record which humpbacks have arrived in the marine park. The difference between now and Magellan's time is that the nomadic people who once inhabited the area no longer cross the straits in their canoes. They have disappeared. The humpback whales were also about to go extinct until 1963 when the IWC established a special moratorium to protect them. The population is slowly beginning to recover and today an estimated 50,000 yubartas live in the southern hemisphere where most of the population is found.

Formed in 1946 to regulate the whaling industry, the IWC is currently made up of 79 member countries. Some of them, like Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina...