San Ignacio Lagoon

With a local community of fewer than 100 inhabitants, residents depend upon fishing and money provided from whale watching as their primary means of support.

The upper lagoon is the shallowest and is the birthing area where pregnant female whales bear their young.

Here, males and females congregate looking for mates and newborn calves prepare themselves for the long journey north to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic.

In 1988, Mexico established the El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve to include San Ignacio Lagoon, which is Latin America's largest wildlife sanctuary.

San Ignacio Lagoon is also the critical habitat for the berrendo or pronghorn antelope, a species that is endangered in Mexico, and an important feeding habitat for four of the world's seven species of sea turtles: leatherbacks, hawksbills, green turtles and olive ridleys (all endangered).