Whalewatching at the World’s Prettiest Taco Bell
Heavenly, heavenly, heavenly. It’s a strange word to ascribe to a Taco Bell or a barnacle-covered humpback whale, but distill each to its fundamental nature and it rings true. In Pacifica, just twenty minutes away from the heart of San Francisco, you can witness both. All you need to do is log into Facebook and visit the group Pacifica Whalespotting.
Photo Credit: Chris Campo, courtesy of Pacifica Whalewatching
Pacifica Taco Bell: Front Row Seats to Whale Spectacle
Snug between Highway 1 and the mighty Pacific Ocean, the Taco Bell Cantina** moved into the shack on the beach a handful of years ago. But the whales have been following the Whale Trail for innumerable generations. Three years ago, Robin Brun realized there was a way to share the collective intel on their movements in real time. So she started a Facebook group.
Last Friday, Brun spent her birthday at the Taco Bell. While she ate her burrito,*** she saw a familiar fluke sticking out of the ocean.
Pacifica is one of the few places where people can witness sperm, orca, gray, and humpback whales for cheap. A boat tour costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars. But Facebook is free.
Suddenly a family of onlookers bellow and gasp in glee on the salty gray deck of the Pacifica Taco Bell. There’s been spotted a whale! The air is coppery and surfers in slick black wetsuits traipse around the parking lot. The best way to describe it is a crowd, even though it’s made up of family and friend groups as well as lone observers.
In the same way, just under the bruise-colored Pacific Ocean waters a crowd of whales attends to the abundance of food.**** Whales are matrilineal, calves following their mothers. But Brun explained that there aren’t necessarily family clans beyond mother calf pairs. “Baleen whales are very solitary,” she says.
Photo Credit: David Chamberlin, courtesy of Pacifica Whalewatching
Facebook Users: The New Scientists
There are two types of whales: Baleen and toothed. Orcas, for instance, are toothed and hunt their dinner. Baleen whales like the humpback and gray have mouths full of the same material as our fingernails. They suck in great mouthfuls and spit out excess water.
The reason both whales frequent Pacifica is, of course, the canyon whose runoff feeds into the ocean and makes the water nutrient-rich. This attracts things like anchovies, which sustain the whale population.
Going online and visiting the public group, you can find the names of several whales, where to spot them, and how much it costs to name one after yourself.***** In March, an astonishing research paper sourced some of its findings from the group she created. With the careful, detailed, and often humorous community-sourced observations, the authors discovered something incredible and devastating.
Photo Credit: Voltaire Yap, courtesy of Pacifica Whalewatching
Climate Change Worries Whalewatchers
Hunger and starvation are forcing certain kinds of whales in Pacifica to shift from their traditional foraging to actively targeting fish. Webber et al. (the authors of the aforementioned study) suggest that this is because they need to get their calories. Although Pacifica is gifted with a glut of food, the ocean is a vast place. Because of the interconnectedness of the food web, a shortage of crabs in Alaska means hungry whales in California.
Climate change touches every aspect of our lives, including the great Californian pastime of watching whales while eating a supreme chalupa from the prettiest Taco Bell in the world. Sea levels will rise, eventually inundating the beautiful building. And every winter, increasingly powerful storms threaten the free cameras that Brun’s moderator David set up so that people can watch the whales from the comfort of their home.
Photo credit: Bunny McFadden for BAS
An abomination of a margarita the electric blue of Baja Blast. Sand on the gray laminate floors. The briny, brackish smell of the ocean mixed with the tang of spice and fatty scent of corn tortillas. Climate change will decimate this campy, joyful part of the Bay Area. Mourn not, reader. Go watch the whales while you still can.
Footnotes
∗∗ What makes it a cantina is the ability to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages. One Yelp reviewer said the cantina bartender was her favorite because he offered to make a swirl of all the frozen slushie alcoholic drinks. This was called graveyard, suicide, or swamp water where this writer grew up. What do readers call it?
∗∗∗ This author usually gets chalupas. While the oft-repeated joke is that this leads to an instantaneous urge to use the restroom, I never get stomach aches when I eat Taco Bell. I suppose I’m just built different.
∗∗∗∗ Tasteless jokes about large bodies feel out of place next to the almost-celestial dance of whales on Brun’s Facebook group. Reader, try and refrain from making jokes about being fat, or we’ll tell your mom you were being rude on the internet.
∗∗∗∗∗ It’s a $500 to $1000 donation on Happywhale. Find out more here: https://happywhale.com/adoptawhale
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