September 12 -- Welcome to the University of Nosy Mangabe. (You get one guess about which animal is our mascot. Hint: it's really big).

Our sandy campus runneth over this week with 14 students invited by Howard, who decided to hold a 10-day workshop here -- as if 10-hour days on the water weren't keeping him busy enough.

I haven't seen this many people in a month. Some are staying in a huge frat-house-like tent close to my own little dome. Unlike real coeds, they're more alive at dawn than they are at midnight. There's yet to be a keg party, but life here is even more interesting with all these Malagasy minds pondering whale science.

There are heated debates at meal-times about the size of a calf they saw; flat-out arguments during class about which fluke photos correspond with which individuals; and long discussions on the boat about the distance of a nearby island (some say 30 kilometers and others insist 2 kilometers. The boat pilots just snigger knowingly).

There are new songs being sung in the waterfall in the mornings and different snores -- some of which sound amazingly similar to whale vocalizations -- coming from the tents at night.

These participants are from all over Madagascar. They represent not only a range of tribes, but also various conservation concerns that include everything from dead and dying coral reefs to the migration of humpbacks along this island's fragile coast. Some have advanced degrees and teach at universities; others work for conservation organizations. Three are involved in the marine mammal ecology program of the new Masoala National Park, an 840-square-mile chunk of tropical wilderness that's situated just across Antongil Bay.

"Last Best Place"

The park, now under the auspices of CARE International and the Wildlife Conservation Society, was signed into law by President Didier Ratsiraka on October 18, 1997. It is known as this country's "last best place," and represents Madagascar's final opportunity to save unexplored beaches, ancient forests and countless endemic species from otherwise certain exploitation.

It is with the support of Project Masoala that Howard is able to touch the lives of workshop participants such as Dr. Emilienne Razafimahatratra. She lives on the high plateau in the interior and teaches at the University of Antananarivo. Emilienne taught Yvette Razafindrakoto who, for three years, has been Howard's right flipper here on Nosy Mangabe.

She's proud of Yvette -- the first Malagasy woman ever to have presented a paper at the World Marine Mammal Science Conference (held in Monaco earlier this year), not to mention the leading authority about humpback whales in her native Madagascar. Emilienne is eager to learn from Yvette how to use a global positioning system in the course of field research. She'll take everything she learns back to the classroom. Her students are Howard's past, present and future interns; they are Madagascar's future.

Remi Andrianamasinahenipeno Ratsimbazafy comes here from Toliara, a village in southwestern Madagascar. He's been studying marine science in France, but recently came home to work because he feels he's most needed here. The first night, during dinner, Remi asks if I have touched a whale. Given my extended stay here and privileged access, it is a reasonable question. Clearly, this is something he hopes to do someday, sooner rather than later.

I tell him no, that Howard and company don't do that particular kind of hands-on research. I tell him we don't touch the humpbacks here, except of course with the darts. What I don't tell him is that a whale touched me.

Yesterday, while our boat was following a surface-active group, I focused my attention on the spouts of the individuals. Their exhalations sounded like bursts of steam escaping from vents that had been clogged; it is a sound that says, "here I am," and at the same time commands "keep your distance!"

Whales are conscious breathers. Unlike us, they must think about holding their breath underwater; they have no gills so must rise to the surface at frequent intervals to breathe, not through their mouths, but through nostrils, or blowholes, on tops of their heads. (Baleen whales have two blowholes; toothed whales, only one.) For this reason, they don't sleep deeply in the same way we do. They doze, or catnap because the part of their brain that controls breathing always has to be awake.

The geysers of spray reached 10 feet high and hung in clouds before they dissipated. Seeing and hearing them weren't enough. I wanted to feel it. The wind and the position of our boat were such that I did.

Humpback Breath

I raised my face up, like a child does to catch snowflakes on her tongue. Then a moist and soft warmth descended on my eyelashes, salt touched my lips. It was so unlike the jarring splash of sea swell that I've grown accustomed to feeling. The touch of it made me catch my breath.

To feel a living being's breath is more intimate even than shaking hands, I think. (A whale's flipper, by the way, is much more similar in bone structure to a human hand than it is to a fish's fin. The humpback's flippers, which grow to 17 feet long in adults, are the longest pectoral fins of any cetacean.) Skin-to-skin contact certainly isn't the only way to touch. Nor is it necessarily the best way to learn about a wild creature.

Established whale watching guidelines hold that pursuing one individual or a group for an extended time in order just to watch perhaps puts undue stress on the creatures; this is especially true for mother/calf pairs that hang around in shallow, protected waters near coasts during the breeding season. Getting close enough to touch a cetacean -- simply out of the desire to do so -- raises any number of ethical concerns and is considered harassment.

"There's lots of places around the world (some are right here, in Madagascar) where whale watching is out of control," Howard says, because people don't have the knowledge. "We're trying to educate before we regulate."

For humpbacks, the tactile sense is as important as sight; secondary only to hearing. They are unique among cetaceans in having many bumps, called tubercles, on their heads. From each bump grows one stiff cat-whisker-like hair, called a vibrissa. The tubercles are connected to a rich network of nerves and likely have a sensory function, but exactly how they work and what they do is unclear. (Whales also are believed to have a little known sixth sense which enables them to detect the Earth's magnetic field.)

Some whales appear to be more sensitive than others. One will flick its tail fluke in response to a dart that sails over its back, while another won't react to a clean strike. Sometimes the biopsy darts Howard shoots penetrate easily, the first time; other times they bounce off seemingly tougher-skinned individuals without collecting a specimen.

Prompted by Remi's question to me, I ask Howard if he had ever touched a whale, during his decades of research. He did once, he admits, launching into a story about his experience. It was 10 years ago. A whale made a close approach, rolling and resting on its side with its white flippers waving in the air next to the inflatable boat Howard was on.

After two hours of photographing the animal and gathering sloughed skin to use for genetic analysis, Howard finally reached out and felt the flipper, which still lay extended. It was muscular and taut, he says, and flinched but didn't pull away.

He would think long and hard before making the same move today. A simple touch without scientific design is not the way to learn about whales, he says.

Science and methodology are what this workshop is all about. I'll spare you the details about the late-night lab session on DNA analysis, but only if you promise to keep your paws off of our humpbacks.

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