LAGUNA SAN IGNACIO in Baja California, Mexico is best known as winter home to the until-recently-endangered gray whale. Every year the whales migrate over 10,000 miles between their summer feeding grounds above the Arctic Circle and the coastal waters of Baja. They have adopted the warm, shallow waters of the lagoons along the west coast of the Baja peninsula for their calving nurseries. Laguna San Ignacio is the only lagoon which is still relatively pristine. Here they spend the months of December to March birthing, feeding their calves, breaching and spyhopping, joined by hardy ecotourists.

The lagoon lies within one of the largest ecological preserves in Latin America, designated a Biosphere Reserve/World Heritage Site by the Mexican government in 1988.

last revised 1.15.99