Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino
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How it came to be
The sanctuary lies in the central part of the Baja California peninsula, centred on the Pacific lagoons of Ojo de Liebre and San Ignacio. Grey whales give birth and winter here, spending about three months before migrating 8,000 km back to the Arctic. Harbour seals, California sea lions, northern elephant seals and blue whales also come, and four species of endangered sea turtle live in the lagoons.
In December 1857 the American whaling captain Charles Melville Scammon took the brig Boston into Ojo de Liebre lagoon for the first time and caught twenty breeding grey whales. The next winter he took forty-seven cows, and in the winter of 1859–60 he began hunting in San Ignacio lagoon to the south, which within a few seasons was swept clean of whales. Ojo de Liebre is still also called Scammon's Lagoon.
A presidential decree of 6 December 1971 made Ojo de Liebre a marine refuge for whales, and in 1979 San Ignacio became a refuge for cetaceans. On 30 November 1988 El Vizcaíno was declared a biosphere reserve. Ojo de Liebre lagoon is home to the world's largest saltworks, and whale watchers rose from 1,000 in 1980 to 30,000 by the early 1990s. The sanctuary was inscribed in 1993.
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