The first time I saw a whale in its natural habitat was in July 2006 in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts.  Before I met whales, I thought they were pretty and interesting because of their large size, but I never thought they would capture me the way that they have.  Since that fateful whale watch in July 2006, I have become a bit obsessed with these majestic creatures.  In fact, I have devoted my life to them.

As a former middle school teacher, I have made educating people about whales my new mission in life.  I recently started an educational organization called Whale Huggers, Inc.  We are a group of teachers devoted to teaching children in grades K-12 about whales and encouraging kids to take action to help these leviathans.  One of the programs we are developing is a summer "Whale Camp" in which middle school children are taken on whale watch boats to collect data for their own, cetacean-based, self-designed research.  This research will be published in Whale Huggers' scientific journal for kids. 

Another way that Whale Huggers will help whales is to encourage children to take action through problem solving.  Students brainstorm problems related to whales, choose an underlying problem, brainstorm solutions, choose the best solution, and develop an action plan for how to make that solution work.  Then students will take charge and actually enact their plan with the help of adult guides.  We hope that these problem solving activities will produce genuine solutions that directly and positively affect the whales we love.

I think the whales have so much to teach all of us.  They are not only mirrors of ourselves in many ways, but they are also ambassadors of the sea.  Whales provide a tenacious, ancient connection between humans and the oceans because they are intelligent mammals like us in a long-forgotten, foreign world that we don't understand.

If nothing else, whales are important because they are also "barometers" for the sea.  Like canaries in coal mines that clue miners in to what awaits beneath the surface, whales can tell us a lot about the health of our oceans and our world.  Recent studies of blubber samples collected from whales all over the planet have unveiled a startling revelation - there is not one marine environment on Earth that is not polluted.  If the largest animals in the world are carriers of the toxins that we created, how long will it be before we humans fall prey to the same toxic pollutants? 

Clearly, whales are amazing creatures, and if you have never seen one in person, you would probably agree that there's nothing like it.  Although I have seen hundreds of whales and been on dozens of whale watches, encountering whales still leaves me breathless, amazed, and invigorated.  I'm not sure if it's the sheer size, the beauty, or the inscrutibility these animals seem to possess, but one thing is for sure, they have never disappointed me.