It was a bright and sunny June day on Cape Beluzhiy when we turned off the engine and just swayed on the waves of the White Sea in complete silence. Somewhere far away, between the shore and the sand spit, the snow-white backs of the Beluga whales appeared every now and again. Stas Zakharov, a marine biologist, took out his smartphone, turned on the music and placed the phone right on the bottom of our rubber dinghy. Joe Dassin was singing over the White Sea.
On the way to Cape Beluzhiy, Stas told us that beluga whales are very musical and curious. When they hear melodic music, they can swim very close to humans. Just a couple of minutes later, as confirmation of his words, two white shadows flickered under our boat. The whales just checked to see what was going on, and then swam away. The presence of humans bothers them.
“But why exactly Joe Dassin?” I wondered. “You can listen to other artists, as well as the classics. I have Joe Dassin in my playlist, but the point is not the musician,” Zakharov answered. The beluga whales’ musical ear is most likely due to their good vocalization, the large range of sounds that these sea animals can make. Scientists have recorded about 80 sound patterns in total that white whales can make: for example, whistling, chirping, bleating, neighing, mooing, grunting and sniffling. And, you know, they can actually sing even better than Joe Dassin, well, probably.
It turned out that watching the white whales in the wild on the Solovki Islands was pretty easy — they come to the shore of Bolshoi Solovetsky Island in late May or early June and stay there until August, or even September. Then they go far away, to the dangerous Arctic waters of the northern seas.
The beluga whales return to Cape Beluzhiy every summer. They are very conservative and are literally attached to their birthplace. A female white whale gives birth, on average, about 7 times in her life. And there is a theory that most Arctic beluga whales give birth only at Cape Beluzhiy. Reproductive clusters — this is what scientists call beluga whales’ summer vacation on Solovki. Adult animals teach their calves all the skills they may need in the difficult Arctic life. And here on the shoal, which locals call Beluga’s Luda, is where new couples meet. “The fights between the males are spectacular,” says Stas. “Struggling for a female, males jump out of the water to a height half their body length. Everything is seething and boiling around them.” The winner gets the coveted female, of course.
Twice a day, at low tides, more than a hundred animals come to the shallow shore, where the water warms up nicely and it’s so pleasant to lie and scratch their bellies. In total, about 700 beluga whales, or eight reproductive clusters, live in the White Sea. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, about 150,000 belugas live throughout the world, but nobody can tell the exact number. Even with this impressive number, it is not easy to survive for a white whale. Many of them die of asphyxiation under the ice or from polar bear and killer whale attacks. Humans are also dangerous predators. Beluga whaling in the White Sea is still officially permitted! But fortunately, it’s rare for a person to use this right.
Cape Beluzhiy is a unique place, the only one in the world where you can watch white whales right from the shore. In 1995, they even built an observation tower where scientists worked in the summer. But that year, it was completely destroyed by the ice. You can easily get to the cape on foot — there are two walking trails. The first one goes along the western shore, via Cape Tolstik. The second one goes via Sekirnaya Mountain. But we chose to to go by water.
Snow-white whales are cautious and skittish. They are afraid to swim close to humans, and loud boat sounds drive an entire herd to swim deep under the water. Even if you are watching them from the shore, it is not recommended to be closer than three meters from the water. And if you are on boat, the distance should be even greater. But with good binoculars, you can see the beluga whales very clearly — playful grey babies frolicking around their moms. Anxious snow-white mothers don’t let their children out of sight even for a second.
Their color helps determine the age of a beluga whale. Adults are perfectly white, while newborns can even be dark blue or brownish. Juveniles under five years old are grey. There is a theory that, due to evolution, the pure white color was given to these whales so that they can merge with the ice.
Beluga whales prefer polar latitudes; they can often be seen in the seas of the Arctic Ocean and in the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean — the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. White whales also live in Greenland and Canada. However, depending on their habitat, marine mammals are very different from each other, primarily in the sounds they use for communication. They probably speak different “beluga dialects.” They even have different sizes: for example, the White Sea beluga whales are a little bit smaller than their “relatives” from the Canadian Arctic, at about 5.5 meters long and weighing up to 1.5 tons.
Despite the fact that the rights of belugas are listed in CITES Appendix II, which means international trade in the species is regulated. People can still hunt them. Officially, it is allowed to catch 50 beluga whales a year only in the White Sea! Poor animals, especially the babies, are of great interest to aquariums. In the Arctic Ocean, the quota is 75 mammals. In Canada, though, beluga whales are closely protected in the five national parks of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and its neighbouring islands.
During the five days that we’ve spent on the Solovki Islands, just once did we get to Cape Beluzhiy. Due to weather conditions — rain and fog — white whales swam far out the sea. But even if you have one trip with more or less good weather, the chance to see the toothed whales is almost 95%. Even if the weather is bad, the sky is grey, or it’s rainy and windy, it is still possible to go out to sea. There is a perfect alternative — to go to the Sennaya Luda shoal and look at the rusty skeletons of shipwrecks and the nearby bird colonies.
You should be very careful upon arrival on the island and while walking around it. In summer, terns, seagulls and penguin-like guillemots nest here. The terns can easily attack uninvited guests and unpleasantly peck them. However, since they are mothers, this is understandable.
Another interesting place for wildlife watching is Top Island. Bearded seals with long whiskers like to bask on its rocks. In the shallow water, funny heads stick out like bobbers — these are ringed seals, a species typical of the Arctic.
When he saw a large bearded seal on the rocks, Stas started talking about mammals. We got a bit closer to the animal, but the fat guy didn’t even look at us. “The interesting thing about the bearded seal is that, unlike the ringed seal, it feeds on the bottom and digs in the seabed. Like whales, bearded seals communicate with each other through various sounds.”
The harp seal, pretty rare among seals, also comes to the waters of the White Sea, but not in summer. It does not like warm air and lives on ice floes. This is one of the three species of seals that live in the White Sea. The harp seal comes here in March and, like beluga whales, forms a unique reproductive herd in Russia. From 3,000 to 8,000 females give birth to snow-white pups, which the Pomors hunted every spring until 2010, when, after the active IFAW campaign, in 2009, a law was signed banning the hunting of seal pups in the White Sea.
During the last boat trip, we crossed the geographical borders of the Arkhangelsk region and the Republic of Karelia several times. And I was thinking that white whales, unlike humans, are definitely more free; they need no documents to travel between countries, cross borders and navigate the seas. But, as withhumans, their own home is very important to them. The point is that they have a place to return to.
The project "Four Seasons of Russia" is supported by the Russian Geographical Society www.rgo.ru
The route to Solovki is recommended by the Russian Geographical Society.
You can buy a tour to Solovki on the website of "Russia Discovery" www.russiadiscovery.ru
More about Solovki:
Solovki: To feel soulful and come back
The Solovetsky Monastery: "The Chronicle of the Cloister"
Photos of Orange Traveler, pictures of beluga whales and seals by Stas Zakharov www.staszakharov.com
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