In the Belly of a Beast

MCINNIS IS NOT YOUR EVERYDAY whale enthusiast. Beyond training doz- ens of interns and volunteers, and leading nearly 2,000 whale watches during her 20 years at Cape Ann Whale Watch in Gloucester, Massachusetts, she has em- barked on a five-year study of ocean and whale health. She has also served as the American Cetacean Society’s education chair. Her most recent project—dubbed the “Whalemobile”—has given her obses- sion a whole new form.

With Nile, a 43-foot inflatable whale, as her tool, McInnis travels across Mas- sachusetts teaching grade school stu- dents about whale anatomy and behav- ior. Complete with lungs, ribs, vertebrae and a stomach, Nile—modeled after a real humpback of the same name—has helped to augment limited marine educa- tion at local elementary schools. “They don’t have the money or funding” for trips anymore, she says, “so I thought the next best thing is to bring a giant inflatable whale into their school that the kids can go inside.” (McInnis gives many of her presentations within Nile’s large, hollow belly.) While in her early days at Cape Ann, McInnis was accustomed to taking as many as 100 school groups on watches in the spring. Today the number tops off at around 20.

Describing the mammals as her “hook” to get kids to think about protect- ing the environment, McInnis hopes that through her programming, students will acquire a similar interest in the world around them. “I feel like whales are that thing that can be really powerful to get the kids to care.”

McInnis based her inflatable on a female humpback whale that often summers off the Massachusetts coast.

“Years ago I wanted to buy an Oscar Mayer Weiner mobile because I thought, ‘That looks like a whale, I’ll just add flippers and a tail!’”