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San Ignacio Lagoon





FACTS ABOUT SAN IGNACIO LAGOON

The lagoon is located 59 kilometers (36 miles) from San Ignacio and Highway 1 in Baja California Sur . With a local community of less than one hundred inhabitants, the lagoon residents depend primarily upon fishing and now whale watching as their primary means of support. The lagoon stretches sixteen miles into the desert and has a maximum width of five miles. The lagoon is divided into three sections. The upper lagoon is the shallowest part and is known as the birthing area where pregnant females travel to in order to bear their young. At the middle lagoon, you find mothers traveling with their newborns, getting them ready to join the majority of the whales at the lower lagoon. At the lower lagoon, you find the majority of the cetaceans and this is where most of the social behavior occurs. Here, males and females congregate looking for mates. In addition, the newborn calves with their mothers travel the length of the lower lagoon preparing themselves for the long journey north to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic .


SAN IGNACIO LAGOON’S SIGNIFICANCE TO THE WORLD COMMUNITY

In 1988 , Hawksbills , Green Turtles and Olive Ridley s (all endangered). In 1993 the United Nations declared San Ignacio lagoon a World Heritage site because of its importance to the world community.