Growing up just north of New York City, the Hudson River was the closest thing I had to an ocean, so many people wonder why I champion dolphins and whales. If you’d asked me five years ago I wouldn’t have been able to answer the question. Then Jeff Pantukhoff, founder of the nonprofit Whaleman Foundation, opened my eyes to the beauty and importance of some of the smartest animals on earth.
Jeff developed a strong love for dolphins and whales at a young age and always dreamt of becoming a marine biologist, but ended up pursuing a decade-long career in the telecommunications industry instead. But in his early 30s he thought, When I die, do I want to be remembered for selling the most phone systems in the world? So after a life-changing trip to Mexico’s San Ignacio Lagoon, he called his telecom career quits and in 1995 started The Whaleman Foundation with a mission to forever protect and preserve dolphins, whales and the ocean habitat.
In 2005, when I was 15, I met Jeff during the shooting of the independent film Shanghai Kiss, where he showed me a video that was more than enough to make me want to be the voice for these animals that were being brutally slaughtered. But it wasn’t until I went on a trip with the foundation to San Ignacio Lagoon and had my first experience with gray whales that I truly understood what. I was fighting for.
We arrived in Mexico expecting palm trees and a resort, but instead were confronted with miles of desert and a tiny wooden hut with nothing but a plank of wood for a bed. We got in tiny boats and went out on the water, only to encounter the most incredibly peaceful, majestic and wise creatures I’d ever seen. I can’t explain the feeling of looking over the side of the boat into the eyes of a baby gray whale begging for its head to be scratched. This place is one of the last breeding grounds of the gray whale. The locals at the camp explained to me that at one point people were trying to turn the lagoon into a huge salt mine, and Jeff almost single-handedly prevented that from happening.
From that day on I had an intense and deep respect for what Jeff was accomplishing and for the innocence and beauty of these animals. I have dedicated a good part of the last five years to the fight to save them and have tried to encourage others to do the same. These animals are not only routinely caught and killed by Japanese, Icelandic and Norwegian fishermen but also die due to entanglement in fishing nets, noise pollution, habitat pollution and many other human-caused catastrophes.
There are many ways to help but my best suggestion is to go and experience these creatures first hand. Every person I’ve taken to see these animals has grabbed my arm and said, “Hayden—now I understand.” Visit whaleman.org.
