Dave Sandersfeld

ODE TO A WARRIOR WHALE
By Dave Sandersfeld

Born around Baja, Mexico, where warm waters welcomed a 1000-pound and 15-foot new baby whale.
Magnificent Gray Whale (Eschrichtius robustus), I wonder how many cycles Spring-Fall) or annual migrations of 12,400 miles (20,000 km) round trip from Baja to Alaska did you make during your life-term? I can only faintly imagine year-round, 24-7 swimming!
How did you sleep or stay awake – out in the Pacific Ocean’s turbulent waves of blue?

I have read you are prone to “Spy-hopping” or coming into coastal inlets to rest from turbulent ocean waves; and like a frog with its eyes protruding out of the water; you use your gray flippers or arm flukes to elevate your head out of the calm seawater to rest.
Did you live long enough to share a life with a soul-mate? Did you two have children; like humans do? As this adds another dimension to your past life; as you might have replaced your self and perpetuated your species here on Earth!
A reference said your species was thought extinct twice in the 18th and 19th century from over aggressive whalers looking for “whale oil” to sell? Even today, your 50-foot and 45-ton adult size makes you look more like a submarine than a mammal!
Your species prefer to stay along the coast line; unlike your other whale brethren. This trait made you easy prey for the Whaler-ships looking for a fast profit from port from the sale of “whale oil” – used to light city night lamps long ago.
Sadly your type is considered “extinct” along the Atlantic Coast; but I am very grateful you are the most common gray whale seen along the Oregon coast twice a year now!
I gather you were a “lunge-feeder” or swimming down to shadowy ocean bottoms and shoving your lower jaw into the muck – between coastal kelp beds. You’d come up for a breath and use your tongue in transit to squeeze out the sand, muck and seawater out of your filtering “baleen” and swallow the bottom krill, shrimp and crustaceans caught in the baleen. A new definition of seafood for humans?
I find it whimsical that you have two notches for a “blow hole” and your “Blow” or exhaled breath appears like a 15-foot tall “heart” in the cool ocean air on the surface!
I assume You met your untimely death while on a “Spy-hopping” break went BAD. No one could give you a hand due to your gigantic girth – you were alone!
You probably came into Sand Lake-Inlet at high tide and found the calm, soft sand bottom inviting to your belly. However, maybe you were napping, and the low tide caught you on the beach?
The buoyancy of the deep seawater helped you lift your massive lungs to breath; yet suddenly you awoke having difficulty breathing and the blistering sun baked you like a “tater” sometime in the remote past.
Did you roll frantically sides to side hoping to slide into deeper waters to swim out quickly; or did you not bother?
To die is not that big of thing; but hopefully you perpetuated your species before you died. Death doesn’t matter; but to not perpetuate your species leads to extinction of your special type on Earth! We all meet the Great Spirit that created us after death here and our life-term is up.
Thus, I write this “Ode to a Warrior Whale” to honor your noble life.
At least, your 4-foot “femur” resting inside Siuslaw National Forest’s Hebo Ranger District’s front office reminds all who see it – You Once breathed, frolicked and rolled with the Pacific Ocean Current’s strong will and made magnificent voyages from Alaska to Mexico in it repeatedly – which humans could not! We who see this whale bone/grave-stone honor your noble life on Earth – in the past. Thank you for being!!!!!