My, How You've Grown!

By Dan Cray/Aboard the Conifer

At first it appeared to be wayward scraps of paper lying on the dock, but as the Coast Guard cutter Conifer left its moorings last week with the squirming body of a 31-ft., 19,200-lb. gray whale stretched across the width of the deck, a glint of light disclosed the discarded object's true identity: a paperback copy of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

That it was left behind is appropriate, since this particular voyage was the very antithesis of Melville's great saga. For the first time in humankind's 5,000 years of seafaring, the prized whale lying on the deck wasn't a trophy of the hunt. Instead, the return of J.J. the whale to the sea, after 15 months of care by animal-rescue workers at nearby Sea World, was a triumph of both compassion and commercialism. "J.J. is so intensely marketed, they fell just short of stamping the whale's tail with a Sea World logo," a sardonic Conifer crewman observed.

Aboard the Conifer as it steamed out to sea, zoologist Kevin Robinson and colleagues hosed J.J. with water. Animal-care supervisor Keith Yip, who for months had planned the move of the largest mammal ever transported, never left his position at the forward edge of the sling, where he stroked J.J.'s bumpy nose, uttered soothing words and looked admiringly into her intelligent, questioning eyes. "Just saying my goodbyes, I guess," murmured Yip, a father of two. "For the past year, J.J. has been my third."

The whale's odyssey began when the one-week-old J.J. was found rolling in the surf near Los Angeles in January 1997, sick and emaciated (a mere 1,670 lbs.). Lifeguards and beachgoers loaded her into a U-Haul truck and drove her 120 miles to Sea World. She arrived comatose, but within days perked up and began gaining 2 lbs. an hour. She dined at first on a baby formula of cream mixed with mushed-up herring and vitamins--sort of a whale version of New England clam chowder--and later switched to bottom feeding on a diet of krill. She became an instant Sea World celebrity, and the p.r. apparatus sprang into gear; there were J.J. souvenirs, live J.J. images on Sea World's Website, even J.J. banners flying in front of Sea World.

In planning J.J.'s safe return to the sea, Yip had another concern: pleasing upper management at Anheuser-Busch, which owns the four Sea World theme parks and promotes its beer on the premises. Yip, unaccustomed to the image business, felt the weight of corporate pressure "for everything to go right." Critics of Sea World, who argue that park officials could simply release their captive killer whales if they truly cared about freeing animals, contend J.J. was little more than a cetacean Spuds MacKenzie. "The J.J. event was purely driven by corporate image needs," says Susan Davis, author of the book Spectacular Nature, a critical examination of Sea World. "People are no longer as tolerant of alcohol advertising, which means Anheuser-Busch needs another way to build a positive association with nature, and that's what mega-event animal saving provides." Indeed, last week the crane operator preparing to hoist J.J. to the ship's deck had to pause for workers to affix a SEA WORLD RESCUE banner to the side of the sling.

Still, the desire to see J.J. freed was so pervasive that animal-rights organizations, typically critical of marine parks, seemed to bite their tongues. Both the Earth Island Institute and the Free Willy/Keiko Foundation cautiously applauded the J.J. effort and hoped Sea World might continue using its resources for animal rehabilitation.

The first leg of J.J.'s return voyage last week was the 11-mile, 45-min. trip by truck from Sea World to dockside. Once aboard the Conifer, J.J. was carried through gentle swells to a position 2.1 nautical miles off Point Loma, Calif., a scenic finger of land near San Diego. There, amid a noisy flotilla of 12 boats, the sling was lowered, and chief boatswain's mate Thomas Young barked the words never before heard: "Release the whale!"

J.J. dove silently into the murky Pacific. Marine biologists hoped she would head north along the traditional migratory path to Alaskan waters, but at the end of the week both transmitters attached near her blowhole had come loose, forcing researchers to try to track her visually. The trick for J.J., her keepers say, will be to remain free of aquatic bacteria, avoid killer whales and learn to feed herself at sea. Still, spirits were high as the Conifer returned to port. "I've got a cold one waiting at home," said a grinning Yip. Then he amended: "Bud, of course."