Wilma The Beluga Whale - JONATHAN BIRD'S BLUE WORLD

Back in 1996, I made a very special friend who lived in a bay in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her name was Wilma, and she was a beautiful white beluga whale. Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world! Beluga whales normally live in the Arctic. The white coloration helps them blend in to sea ice. Guysborough, Nova Scotia is a long way from the Arctic. This rural fishing village is a lovely quiet place where people are friendly. It's beautiful, peaceful, and pretty far from everything. People go there in the summertime just to get away, enjoy breathtaking scenery, maybe play a little golf. And for a time at least, they went to see Wilma, a beluga that had taken up residence. I went there in 1996 to see her as well, and what I found amazed me. Every day, dozens of people came out onto Chetabucto Bay to catch a glimpse of Wilma, who had become a local celebrity. She became so popular that people were afraid a boat might hit her or cut her with its propeller. Wilma was such an attraction that some people started Wilma-watching trips for tourists. Despite the concerns, it was pretty obvious that Wilma loved the attention. She loved to play, and seemed just like a puppy dog to a lot of people. She gave more than one swimmer a surprise, but never hurt anyone. And Wilma seemed to like everyone, from swimmers to snorkelers to divers. She was very young when she showed up in the bay. She still had a lot of growing to do. As an adult, Wilma could be 10 feet long and weigh almost 3,000 pounds, as much as a small car. No one knows why she came here. Perhaps something happened to her mother and she was orphaned. She became lost and separated from her pod. She was all alone, but she found friends in Nova Scotia. Belugas are known to be playful and pretty social. They often live together in large pods of 25 members or more. So it must have been tough for Wilma without another beluga whale nearby to hang out with and play. She seemed to welcome people as a substitute for interaction with her own kind. One of those people was Jim Johnson, arguably her best friend. Jim was a local diver and underwater photographer, and for a while, he and Wilma were spending a lot of time together. Jim was one of the first people to spot Wilma. He saw her one day, a lonely little whale hanging out by a buoy in the bay. He went out to visit her in his little inflatable boat, and they became great friends. It was Jim who introduced me to Wilma. And I remember the first time I saw her. In all my years of diving, I've never known a marine animal that seemed to have so much interest in me. She truly seemed to enjoy my company and played for hours. Belugas are one of the few species of whales that can turn their heads. Wilma would look at me and follow me. Some researchers think that Belugas communicate with each other through facial expressions. I think she was trying to communicate with me. She was asking me to come play with her. And Wilma also talked quite a bit. She made all kinds of noises. Researchers think that Belugas use these sounds to communicate with one another, although no one really knows what they are saying. Although most Beluga whales live further north in the Arctic, and her presence in Nova Scotia was highly unusual. Wilma had almost everything she needed here. In addition to lots of human friends, she found plenty to eat. There are fish here, and fish are one of her favorite foods. Wilma also spent a lot of time nosing around on the bottom where she found lobsters, crabs, and other bottom-dwelling animals that make up her diet. Chittabuckto Bay is not very deep, but Beluga whales sometimes dive a thousand feet or more to find food, and they can stay down for minutes at a time. Wilma, like many whales, probably used echolocation. She made clicking sounds that bounced off things and helped her find food and figure out where she was and what was around her. One day Wilma blew bubbles at me. It kind of blasted me back a little. I wondered if she was angry with me. Turns out she was probably just playing, but Belugas frequently blow like this to clear away sand on the bottom to find food. One curious thing about Wilma, she seemed to like cameras and followed us around, probably looking for that great close-up. She even seemed to like engines and boats. She really liked rubbing up against the propellers, which was probably not a good thing to enjoy. Not everyone was careful around her, and she did get some injuries like these marks on her back caused by a boat propeller. Wilma also liked to spend hours scratching and rubbing herself on the soft sand on the bottom, which may explain some of these other marks on her skin. She also liked to dance, kind of like an underwater ballet, playing and entertaining herself for hours at a time. Lots of people tried to lay claim to Wilma. Researchers went out and studied her, but didn't interact with her at all. They wanted others, like Jim, to stop interacting. They worried that human contact wasn't good for her. They feared it would make her too dependent on people. But Jim refused to stop. Wilma was his friend, and he believed that she wanted to see him, and she benefited from their friendship. There's that cut this morning, see right here? Oh yeah. That's a new one, huh? Many were also angry at the tour boat that regularly brought paying customers out to Wilma. They didn't want Wilma exploited for profit. Finally, one day, Wilma just wasn't there. He didn't come out to greet Jim Johnson, or the charter boat full of people, or anyone. Was Wilma gone? Perhaps she met another beluga. Perhaps she reached maturity and decided to go look for a mate. But after six years, how could she leave all the friends who loved her and came out every day to play with her? But she was, it seems, gone. Maybe humans just were not enough, and she needed to be with other belugas. Nobody has seen Wilma in a few years. She vanished from the bay, and nobody knows where she went. I'm hoping my friend Wilma went back to the Arctic to be with her own kind.