Background on Gray Whales

Although the Gray Whale is abundant in the eastern Pacific Ocean today, it hasn't always been. At one time there were three Gray Whale populations in the world: a north Atlantic population, now extinct, possibly the victims of over-hunting; a Korean or western North Pacific stock now very depleted, also possibly due to over-hunting; and the eastern North Pacific population, the largest surviving population. Hunted to the edge of extinction in the 1850's after the discovery of the calving lagoons, and again in the early 1900's with the introduction of floating factories, the Gray Whale was given partial protection in 1937 and full protection in 1947 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Pre-whaling estimates of the eastern North Pacific population range from 15,000 to 75,000 animals.

The eastern North Pacific Gray Whale made a remarkable recovery to numbers between 18,000 and 27,000, probably close to their original population size some experts think. But from 1999 to 2002 this population mysteriously plunged from an estimated peak of 26,635 whales in 1998 to 17,414 in 2002, the lowest in nearly two decades. Although the die-off stopped in 2002 as mysteriously as it started, some tallies show that this Gray Whale population dropped by more than a third in 4 years.

What was particularly troubling has been the inability of scientists to determine the cause. Commercial hunting could not be blamed. Eskimo and Native American hunters, the only people allowed to kill the animals, take only 140 Gray Whales each year. What exactly went wrong is still in debate. One scientist thought it was the flu. Another blamed chemical pollutants. Others pointed to cyanide-based fluorescent dye used to mark illegal narcotics drops in the ocean. Was it toxic algae blooms? Nuclear waste? Old military toxic waste on the ocean floor? How about Navy sonar experiments that have been responsible for mass strandings, whale deaths, and internal hemorrhaging of whale eardrums? Did the whales exceed their food supply and die of starvation?

One thing is for sure; Gray Whales are largely bottom feeders that suck up huge mouthfuls of mud and their primary prey, small crustaceans called Amphipods.

This method of feeding on the bottom is fairly unique among baleen whales, the majority of which feed in the mid-water or surface waters for krill and small fish. Feeding on the bottom where most human-introduced pollutants eventually settle may subject Gray Whales to higher concentrations of pollutants than other baleen whales. In addition, Gray Whales spend the majority of their time in shallow coastal waters often near concentrated human populations where pollution run-off from the land is in higher concentrations than the open seas. This is a hypothesis that needs to be tested by scientists.

Today, the recovering numbers of Gray Whales in the eastern North Pacific population have become a common sight along the coast from Mexico to Alaska during their northerly spring migration. Some coastal fishing communities that have suffered a downturn in commercial fishing during the last decade are experiencing an economic revival based on commercial whale watching. Because of their closer proximity to humans, Gray Whales are the most popular whale species on the west coast. More information is available on them on the Internet than any other whale.

Scientists studying global climate change have confirmed an increasing water temperature of the Bering Sea. Consequently, this is changing the food chain that Gray Whales depend on for summer feasting. During the winter and spring of 2006-2007, greater numbers of thinner than normal Gray Whales showed up in the calving and mating lagoons of Baja, suggesting they didn't get enough to eat up north. Less mating behavior was also observed and the whales left the lagoons earlier than usual to head back north. Once again, the population appears to be on the decline with recent estimates of 15,000 to 18,000 whales.

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Gray whales and Alaska Native Art