Gray Whale
Encyclopedia
The gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, is a baleen whale
that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about 16 metres (52.5 ft), a weight of 36 tonnes (35.4 LT), and lives 50–70 years. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The gray whale is the sole living species in the genus
Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole living genus in the family
Eschrichtiidae
. This mammal descended from filter-feeding whales that developed at the beginning of the Oligocene
, over 30 million years ago.
The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American) population and a critically endangered western North Pacific (Asian) population. North Atlantic populations were extirpated
(perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before 500 AD and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. However, on May 8, 2010, a sighting of a gray whale was confirmed off the coast of Israel
in the Mediterranean Sea
, leading some scientists to think they might be repopulating old breeding grounds that have not been used for centuries.
analysis indicates that certain rorqual
s of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale
, Megaptera novaeangliae, and fin whale
, Balaenoptera physalus, are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whale
s. John Edward Gray
placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of zoologist Daniel Eschricht. The common name of the whale comes from its coloration. The subfossil remains of now extinct gray whales from the Atlantic coasts of England
and Sweden
were used by Gray to make the first scientific description of a species then surviving only in Pacific waters. The living Pacific species was described by Cope as Ranchianectes glaucus in 1869. Skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Gray's naming has been generally accepted since. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by anatomical data, its skeleton is distinctive and easy to distinguish from that of all other living whales.
Many other names have been ascribed to the gray whale, including desert whale, devil fish, gray back, mussel digger and rip sack. The name Eschrichtius gibbosus is sometimes seen; this is dependent on the acceptance of a 1777 description by Erxleben.
Gray whales measure from 16 feet (4.9 m) in length for newborns to 45 feet (13.7 m) for adult females (which tend to be slightly larger than adult males). Newborns are a darker gray to black in color. A mature gray whale can reach 40 tonnes (39.4 LT).
They have two blowholes on top of their head, which can create a distinctive V-shaped blow at the surface in calm wind conditions.
Notable features that distinguish the gray whale from other mysticetes include its baleen
that is variously described as cream, off-white, or blond in color and is unusually short. Small depressions on the upper jaw each contain a lone stiff hair, but are only visible on close inspection. Its head's ventral surface lacks the numerous prominent furrows of the related rorquals, instead bearing two to five shallow furrows on the throat's underside. The gray whale also lacks a dorsal fin
, instead bearing 6 to 12 dorsal crenulations ("knuckles"), which are raised bumps on the midline of its rear quarter, leading to the flukes. The tail itself is 10 – across and deeply notched at the center while its edges taper to a point.
and southern Korea, and a larger one with a population between 20,000 and 22,000 individuals in the eastern Pacific travelling between the waters off Alaska
and Baja California
. In 2007, S. Elizabeth Alter used a genetic approach to estimate prewhaling abundance based on samples from 42 California gray whales, and reported DNA variability at 10 genetic loci consistent with a population size of 76,000–118,000 individuals, three to five times larger than the average census size as measured through 2007. NOAA conducted a new populations study in 2010-2011; those data will be available by 2012. The ocean ecosystem has likely changed since the prewhaling era, making a return to prewhaling numbers infeasible; many marine ecologists argue that existing gray whale numbers in the eastern Pacific Ocean are approximately at the population's carrying capacity.
The gray whale became extinct in the North Atlantic in the 18th century. Radiocarbon dating of subfossil or fossil European (Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom) coastal remains confirms this, with whaling the possible cause. Remains dating from the Roman epoch were found in the Mediterranean during excavation of the antique harbor of Lattara near Montpellier
in 1997, raising the question of whether Atlantic gray whales migrated up and down the coast of Europe to calve in the Mediterranean. Similarly, radiocarbon dating of American east coastal subfossil remains confirm gray whales existed at least through the 17th century. This population ranged at least from Southampton, New York
to Jupiter Island, Florida
, the latest from 1675. In his 1835 history of Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers. A. B. Van Deinse points out that the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725 as one of the species hunted by the early New England whalers, was almost certainly the gray whale.
In mid-1980, there were three gray whale sightings in the eastern Beaufort Sea
, placing them 585 kilometres (363.5 mi) further east than their known range at the time. In May 2010 a gray whale was sighted off the Mediterranean shore of Israel. It has been speculated that this whale crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Northwest Passage
, since alternative routes through the Panama Canal
or Cape Horn
are not contiguous to the whale's established territory. There has been gradual melting and recession of Arctic sea ice with extreme loss in 2007 rendering the Northwest Passage "fully navigable". The same whale was sighted again on June 8, 2010, off the coast of Barcelona, Spain.
In January 2011 a gray whale that had been tagged in the Western population was tracked as far east as the eastern population range off the coast of British Columbia.
The gestation period for grey whales is approximately 13.5 months . In the latter half of the pregnancy, the fetus experiences a rapid growth in length and mass. Similar to the narrow breeding season, most calves are born within a six-week time period in mid January . The calf is born tail first, and measures about 4 metres (13.1 ft) in length. Females lactate for approximately seven months following birth, at which point calves are weaned and maternal care begins to decrease . The shallow lagoon waters in which gray whales reproduce are believed to protect the newborn from shark
s and orca
s.
crustacean
s, which it eats by turning on its side (usually the right, resulting in loss of eyesight in the right eye for many older animals) and scooping up sediments from the sea floor. It is classified as a baleen whale
and has baleen
, or whalebone, which acts like a sieve, to capture small sea animals, including amphipods
taken in along with sand
, water
and other material. Mostly, the animal feeds in the northern waters during the summer; and opportunistically feeds during its migration, depending primarily on its extensive fat reserves. Calf gray whales drink fifty to eighty gallons of their mother's 53% fat milk per day.
and Chukchi
seas and ending in the warm-water lagoon
s of Mexico's Baja peninsula and the southern Gulf of California
, they travel along the west coast of Canada
, the United States
and Mexico
.
Traveling night and day, the gray whale averages approximately 120 kilometres (74.6 mi) per day at an average speed of 8 kilometres per hour (5 mph). This round trip of 16000 kilometre is believed to be the longest annual migration of any mammal
. By mid-December to early January, the majority are usually found between Monterey
and San Diego
, often visible from shore. The whale watching
industry provides ecotourists
and marine mammal
enthusiasts the opportunity to see groups of gray whales as they migrate.
By late December to early January, they begin to arrive in the calving lagoons of Baja. The three most popular lagoons are Laguna Ojo de Liebre
(formerly known in English as Scammon's Lagoon after whaleman Charles Melville Scammon
who discovered the lagoons in the 1850s and hunted the grays,), San Ignacio
, and Magdalena.
These first whales to arrive are usually pregnant mothers that look for the protection of the lagoons to bear their calves, along with single females seeking mates. By mid-February to mid-March, the bulk of the population has arrived in the lagoons, filling them with nursing, calving and mating gray whales.
Throughout February and March, the first to leave the lagoons are males and females without new calves. Pregnant females and nursing mothers with their newborns are the last to depart, leaving only when their calves are ready for the journey, which is usually from late March to mid-April. Often a few mothers linger with their young calves well into May.
By late March or early April, the returning animals can be seen from Everett, Washington
to Puget Sound
to Canada
.
A population of about 200 gray whales stay along the eastern Pacific coast from Canada to California throughout the summer, not making the farther trip to Alaska waters. This summer resident group is known as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG).
are the adult gray whale's only predators. Aboriginal hunters, including those on Vancouver Island
and the Makah in Washington state, have hunted gray whales. The Japanese began to catch gray whales beginning in the 1570s. At Kawajiri, Nagato
, 169 gray whales were caught between 1698 and 1889. At Tsuro
, Shikoku
, 201 were taken between 1849 and 1896. Several hundred more were probably caught by American and European whalemen in the Sea of Okhotsk
from the 1840s to the early 20th century. Whalemen caught 44 with nets in Japan during the 1890s. The real damage was done between 1911 and 1933, when Japanese whalemen killed 1,449. By 1934, the western gray whale was near extinction. From 1891 to 1966 an estimated 1,800-2,000 gray whales were caught, with peak catches of 100-200 annually occurring in the 1910s.
Commercial whaling by Europe
ans of the species in the North Pacific began in the winter of 1845-46, when two United States ships, the Hibernia and the United States, under Captains Smith and Stevens, caught 32 in Magdalena Bay
. More ships followed in the two following winters, after which gray whaling in the bay was nearly abandoned because "of the inferior quality and low price of the dark-colored gray whale oil, the low quality and quantity of whalebone from the gray, and the dangers of lagoon whaling."
Gray whaling in Magdalena Bay was revived in the winter of 1855-56 by several vessels, mainly from San Francisco, including the ship Leonore, under Captain Charles Melville Scammon
. This was the first of eleven winters from 1855 through 1865 known as the "bonanza period", during which gray whaling along the coast of Baja California reached its peak. Not only were the whales taken in Magdalena Bay, but also by ships anchored along the coast from San Diego south to Cabo San Lucas
and from whaling stations from Crescent City
in northern California south to San Ignacio Lagoon. During the same period, vessels targeting right
and bowhead whale
s in the Gulf of Alaska
, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Western Arctic would take the odd gray whale if neither of the more desirable two species were in sight.
In December 1857, Charles Scammon, in the brig Boston, along with his schooner-tender Marin, entered Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Jack-Rabbit Spring Lagoon) or later known as Scammon's Lagoon (by 1860) and found one of the gray's last refuges. He caught 20 whales. He returned the following winter (1858–59) with the bark Ocean Bird and schooner tenders A.M. Simpson and Kate. In three months, he caught 47 cows, yielding 1700 barrels (270,278.4 l) of oil. In the winter of 1859-60, Scammon, again in the bark Ocean Bird, along with several other vessels, performed a similar feat of daring by entering San Ignacio Lagoon to the south where he discovered the last breeding lagoon. Within only a couple of seasons the lagoon was nearly devoid of whales.
Between 1846 and 1874, an estimated 8,000 gray whales were killed by American and European whalemen, with over half having been killed in the Magdalena Bay complex (Estero Santo Domingo, Magdalena Bay itself, and Almejas Bay) and by shore whalemen in California and Baja California. This, for the most part, does not take into account the large number of calves injured or left to starve after their mothers had been killed in the breeding lagoons. Since whalemen primarily targeted these new mothers, several thousand deaths should probably be added to the total. Shore whaling in California and Baja California continued after this period, until the early 20th century.
A second, shorter, and less intensive hunt occurred for gray whales in the eastern North Pacific. Only a few were caught from two whaling stations on the coast of California from 1919 to 1926, and a single station in Washington (1911–21) accounted for the capture of another. For the entire west coast of North America for the years 1919 to 1929, some 234 gray whales were caught. Only a dozen or so were taken by British Columbian stations, nearly all of them in 1953 at Coal Harbour
. A whaling station in Richmond, California
caught 311 gray whales for "scientific purposes" between 1964 and 1969. From 1961 to 1972, the Soviet Union caught 138 gray whales (they originally reported not having taken any). The only other significant catch was made in two seasons by the steam-schooner California off Malibu, California. In the winters of 1934-35 and 1935–36, the California anchored off Point Dume
in Paradise Cove, processing gray whales. In 1936, gray whales became protected in the United States
.
As of 2001, the California gray whale population had grown to about 26,000. As of 2011, the population of western Pacific (seas near Korea, Japan, and Kamchatka) gray whales was an estimated 130.
(IWC) since 1949, and are no longer hunted on a large scale.
Limited hunting of gray whales has continued since that time, however, primarily in the Chukotka
region of northeastern Russia, where large numbers of gray whales spend the summer months. This hunt has been allowed under an "aboriginal/subsistence whaling" exception to the commercial-hunting ban. Antiwhaling groups have protested the hunt, saying the meat from the whales is not for traditional native consumption, but is used instead to feed animals in government-run fur farms; they cite annual catch numbers that rose dramatically during the 1940s, at the time when state-run fur farms were being established in the region. Although the Soviet
government denied these charges as recently as 1987, in recent years the Russian government has acknowledged the practice. The Russian IWC delegation has said that the hunt is justified under the aboriginal/subsistence exemption, since the fur farms provide a necessary economic base for the region's native population.
Currently, the annual quota for the gray whale catch in the region is 140 per year. Pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Russia, the Makah tribe of Washington claimed four whales from the IWC quota established at the 1997 meeting. With the exception of a single gray whale killed in 1999, the Makah people have been prevented from hunting by a series of legal challenges, culminating in a United States federal appeals court
decision in December 2002 that required the National Marine Fisheries Service
to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement
. On September 8, 2007, five members of the Makah tribe shot a gray whale using high powered rifles in spite of the decision. The whale died within 12 hours, sinking while heading out to sea.
As of 2008, the IUCN regards the gray whale as being of "Least Concern" from a conservation perspective. However, the specific subpopulation in the northwest Pacific is regarded as being "Critically Endangered". The northwest Pacific population is also listed as endangered by the U.S. government’s National Marine Fisheries Service
under the U.S. Endangered Species Act
.
In their breeding grounds in Baja California
, Mexican law protects whales in their lagoons while still permitting whale watching. Gray whales are protected under Canada's Species at Risk Act
which obligates Canadian governments to prepare management plans for the whales and consider the interests of the whales when permitting development.
In 1972, a three-month-old gray whale named Gigi (II) was captured for brief study by Dr. David W. Kenney, and then released near San Diego.
In January 1997, the newborn baby whale J.J. was found helpless near the coast of Los Angeles, California
, 4.2 metres (13.8 ft) long and 800 kilograms (1,763.7 lb) in weight. Nursed back to health in SeaWorld
San Diego, she was released into the Pacific Ocean on March 31, 1998, 9 metres (29.5 ft) long and 8500 kilograms (18,739.3 lb) in mass. She shed her radio transmitter packs three days later.
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about 16 metres (52.5 ft), a weight of 36 tonnes (35.4 LT), and lives 50–70 years. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The gray whale is the sole living species in the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole living genus in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Eschrichtiidae
Eschrichtiidae
Eschrichtiidae is a family of baleen whales in the suborder Mysticeti.At least five genera are recognised, but only a single species from one genus is still alive, the gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus....
. This mammal descended from filter-feeding whales that developed at the beginning of the Oligocene
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
, over 30 million years ago.
The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American) population and a critically endangered western North Pacific (Asian) population. North Atlantic populations were extirpated
Local extinction
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...
(perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before 500 AD and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. However, on May 8, 2010, a sighting of a gray whale was confirmed off the coast of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, leading some scientists to think they might be repopulating old breeding grounds that have not been used for centuries.
Taxonomy
The gray whale is traditionally placed as the only living species in its genus and family. Recent DNADNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
analysis indicates that certain rorqual
Rorqual
Rorquals are the largest group of baleen whales, with nine species in two genera. They include the largest animal that has ever lived, the Blue Whale, which can reach , and another that easily reaches ; even the smallest of the group, the Northern Minke Whale, reaches .-Characteristics:Rorquals...
s of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
, Megaptera novaeangliae, and fin whale
Fin Whale
The fin whale , also called the finback whale, razorback, or common rorqual, is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales. It is the second longest whale and the sixth largest living animal after the blue whale, bowhead whale, and right whales, growing to nearly 27 metres long...
, Balaenoptera physalus, are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whale
Minke Whale
Minke whale , or lesser rorqual, is a name given to two species of marine mammal belonging to a clade within the suborder of baleen whales. The minke whale was given its official designation by Lacepède in 1804, who described a dwarf form of Balænoptera acuto-rostrata...
s. John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....
placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of zoologist Daniel Eschricht. The common name of the whale comes from its coloration. The subfossil remains of now extinct gray whales from the Atlantic coasts of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
were used by Gray to make the first scientific description of a species then surviving only in Pacific waters. The living Pacific species was described by Cope as Ranchianectes glaucus in 1869. Skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Gray's naming has been generally accepted since. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by anatomical data, its skeleton is distinctive and easy to distinguish from that of all other living whales.
Many other names have been ascribed to the gray whale, including desert whale, devil fish, gray back, mussel digger and rip sack. The name Eschrichtius gibbosus is sometimes seen; this is dependent on the acceptance of a 1777 description by Erxleben.
Description
The gray whale is a dark slate-gray in color and covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, scars left by parasites which drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individual whales are typically identified using photographs of their dorsal surface and matching the scars and patches associated with parasites that have fallen off the whale or are still attached.Gray whales measure from 16 feet (4.9 m) in length for newborns to 45 feet (13.7 m) for adult females (which tend to be slightly larger than adult males). Newborns are a darker gray to black in color. A mature gray whale can reach 40 tonnes (39.4 LT).
They have two blowholes on top of their head, which can create a distinctive V-shaped blow at the surface in calm wind conditions.
Notable features that distinguish the gray whale from other mysticetes include its baleen
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
that is variously described as cream, off-white, or blond in color and is unusually short. Small depressions on the upper jaw each contain a lone stiff hair, but are only visible on close inspection. Its head's ventral surface lacks the numerous prominent furrows of the related rorquals, instead bearing two to five shallow furrows on the throat's underside. The gray whale also lacks a dorsal fin
Dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...
, instead bearing 6 to 12 dorsal crenulations ("knuckles"), which are raised bumps on the midline of its rear quarter, leading to the flukes. The tail itself is 10 – across and deeply notched at the center while its edges taper to a point.
Populations
Two Pacific Ocean populations are known to exist: one of not more than 160 individuals whose migratory route is unknown, but presumed to be between the Sea of OkhotskSea of Okhotsk
The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and...
and southern Korea, and a larger one with a population between 20,000 and 22,000 individuals in the eastern Pacific travelling between the waters off Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
. In 2007, S. Elizabeth Alter used a genetic approach to estimate prewhaling abundance based on samples from 42 California gray whales, and reported DNA variability at 10 genetic loci consistent with a population size of 76,000–118,000 individuals, three to five times larger than the average census size as measured through 2007. NOAA conducted a new populations study in 2010-2011; those data will be available by 2012. The ocean ecosystem has likely changed since the prewhaling era, making a return to prewhaling numbers infeasible; many marine ecologists argue that existing gray whale numbers in the eastern Pacific Ocean are approximately at the population's carrying capacity.
The gray whale became extinct in the North Atlantic in the 18th century. Radiocarbon dating of subfossil or fossil European (Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom) coastal remains confirms this, with whaling the possible cause. Remains dating from the Roman epoch were found in the Mediterranean during excavation of the antique harbor of Lattara near Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
in 1997, raising the question of whether Atlantic gray whales migrated up and down the coast of Europe to calve in the Mediterranean. Similarly, radiocarbon dating of American east coastal subfossil remains confirm gray whales existed at least through the 17th century. This population ranged at least from Southampton, New York
Southampton (town), New York
The Town of Southampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, U.S., partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town had a total population of 54,712...
to Jupiter Island, Florida
Jupiter Island, Florida
Jupiter Island is a town on the barrier island of Jupiter Island in Martin County, Florida, United States. It has no post office and all mail comes from Hobe Sound on the mainland. The population was 620 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 2004,...
, the latest from 1675. In his 1835 history of Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers. A. B. Van Deinse points out that the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725 as one of the species hunted by the early New England whalers, was almost certainly the gray whale.
In mid-1980, there were three gray whale sightings in the eastern Beaufort Sea
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort...
, placing them 585 kilometres (363.5 mi) further east than their known range at the time. In May 2010 a gray whale was sighted off the Mediterranean shore of Israel. It has been speculated that this whale crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Northwest Passage
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...
, since alternative routes through the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
or Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
are not contiguous to the whale's established territory. There has been gradual melting and recession of Arctic sea ice with extreme loss in 2007 rendering the Northwest Passage "fully navigable". The same whale was sighted again on June 8, 2010, off the coast of Barcelona, Spain.
In January 2011 a gray whale that had been tagged in the Western population was tracked as far east as the eastern population range off the coast of British Columbia.
Reproduction
Breeding behavior is complex and often involves three or more animals. Both male and female whales reach puberty at approximately eight years of age . Females show highly synchronized reproduction, undergoing oestrus in late November to early December . During the breeding season, it is common for females to have several mates http://lsiecosystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Swartz-Rugh-Taylor-GW-Stock-ID-June-06.pdf. This single ovulation event is believed to coincide with the species’ annual migration patterns, when births can occur in warmer waters . Most females show biennial reproduction, although annual births have been reported . Males also show seasonal changes, experiencing an increase in testes mass that correlates with females undergoing oestrus . Currently there are no accounts of twin births, although an instance of twins in utero has been reported .The gestation period for grey whales is approximately 13.5 months . In the latter half of the pregnancy, the fetus experiences a rapid growth in length and mass. Similar to the narrow breeding season, most calves are born within a six-week time period in mid January . The calf is born tail first, and measures about 4 metres (13.1 ft) in length. Females lactate for approximately seven months following birth, at which point calves are weaned and maternal care begins to decrease . The shallow lagoon waters in which gray whales reproduce are believed to protect the newborn from shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
s and orca
Orca
The killer whale , commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas...
s.
Feeding
The whale feeds mainly on benthicBenthos
Benthos is the community of organisms which live on, in, or near the seabed, also known as the benthic zone. This community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments, from tidal pools along the foreshore, out to the continental shelf, and then down to the abyssal depths.Many organisms...
crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s, which it eats by turning on its side (usually the right, resulting in loss of eyesight in the right eye for many older animals) and scooping up sediments from the sea floor. It is classified as a baleen whale
Baleen whale
The Baleen whales, also called whalebone whales or great whales, form the Mysticeti, one of two suborders of the Cetacea . Baleen whales are characterized by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, rather than having teeth. This distinguishes them from the other suborder of cetaceans,...
and has baleen
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
, or whalebone, which acts like a sieve, to capture small sea animals, including amphipods
Amphipoda
Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. The name amphipoda means "different-footed", and refers to the different forms of appendages, unlike isopods, where all the legs are alike. Of the 7,000 species, 5,500 are classified...
taken in along with sand
Sand
Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...
, water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
and other material. Mostly, the animal feeds in the northern waters during the summer; and opportunistically feeds during its migration, depending primarily on its extensive fat reserves. Calf gray whales drink fifty to eighty gallons of their mother's 53% fat milk per day.
Migration
Each October, as the northern ice pushes southward, small groups of gray whales in the eastern Pacific start a two to three-month, 8000 kilometre trip south. Beginning in the BeringBering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
and Chukchi
Chukchi Sea
Chukchi Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the De Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific...
seas and ending in the warm-water lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
s of Mexico's Baja peninsula and the southern Gulf of California
Gulf of California
The Gulf of California is a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland...
, they travel along the west coast of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Traveling night and day, the gray whale averages approximately 120 kilometres (74.6 mi) per day at an average speed of 8 kilometres per hour (5 mph). This round trip of 16000 kilometre is believed to be the longest annual migration of any mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
. By mid-December to early January, the majority are usually found between Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
and San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
, often visible from shore. The whale watching
Whale watching
Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and other cetaceans in their natural habitat. Whales are watched most commonly for recreation but the activity can also serve scientific or educational purposes. A 2009 study, prepared for IFAW, estimated that 13 million people went whale watching...
industry provides ecotourists
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...
and marine mammal
Marine mammal
Marine mammals, which include seals, whales, dolphins, and walruses, form a diverse group of 128 species that rely on the ocean for their existence. They do not represent a distinct biological grouping, but rather are unified by their reliance on the marine environment for feeding. The level of...
enthusiasts the opportunity to see groups of gray whales as they migrate.
By late December to early January, they begin to arrive in the calving lagoons of Baja. The three most popular lagoons are Laguna Ojo de Liebre
Laguna Ojo de Liebre
Laguna Ojo de Liebre , translated into English as "Hare's Eye Lagoon", is a coastal lagoon located in Mulegé Municipality near the town of Guerrero Negro in the northwestern part of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur...
(formerly known in English as Scammon's Lagoon after whaleman Charles Melville Scammon
Charles Melville Scammon
Charles Melville Scammon was a 19th-century whaleman, naturalist, and author. He was the first to hunt the gray whales of both Laguna Ojo de Liebre and San Ignacio Lagoon, the former once being called "Scammon's Lagoon" after him. In 1874 he wrote the book The Marine Mammals of the North-western...
who discovered the lagoons in the 1850s and hunted the grays,), San Ignacio
San Ignacio Lagoon
San Ignacio Lagoon is a lagoon located Mulegé Municipality in the Mexican province of Baja California Sur, from San Ignacio, Mexico and Highway 1...
, and Magdalena.
These first whales to arrive are usually pregnant mothers that look for the protection of the lagoons to bear their calves, along with single females seeking mates. By mid-February to mid-March, the bulk of the population has arrived in the lagoons, filling them with nursing, calving and mating gray whales.
Throughout February and March, the first to leave the lagoons are males and females without new calves. Pregnant females and nursing mothers with their newborns are the last to depart, leaving only when their calves are ready for the journey, which is usually from late March to mid-April. Often a few mothers linger with their young calves well into May.
By late March or early April, the returning animals can be seen from Everett, Washington
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...
to Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
A population of about 200 gray whales stay along the eastern Pacific coast from Canada to California throughout the summer, not making the farther trip to Alaska waters. This summer resident group is known as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG).
North Pacific
Humans and the orcaOrca
The killer whale , commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas...
are the adult gray whale's only predators. Aboriginal hunters, including those on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
and the Makah in Washington state, have hunted gray whales. The Japanese began to catch gray whales beginning in the 1570s. At Kawajiri, Nagato
Nagato Province
, often called , was a province of Japan. It was at the extreme western end of Honshū, in the area that is today Yamaguchi Prefecture. Nagato bordered on Iwami and Suō Provinces....
, 169 gray whales were caught between 1698 and 1889. At Tsuro
Tsuro
Tsuro is a tile-based board game designed by Tom McMurchie, originally published by WizKids and now published by Calliope Games.Tsuro is a board game for two to eight players. Each player takes their turn by selecting a tile from their "hand", and places the tile on the board to build a path that...
, Shikoku
Shikoku
is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...
, 201 were taken between 1849 and 1896. Several hundred more were probably caught by American and European whalemen in the Sea of Okhotsk
Sea of Okhotsk
The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and...
from the 1840s to the early 20th century. Whalemen caught 44 with nets in Japan during the 1890s. The real damage was done between 1911 and 1933, when Japanese whalemen killed 1,449. By 1934, the western gray whale was near extinction. From 1891 to 1966 an estimated 1,800-2,000 gray whales were caught, with peak catches of 100-200 annually occurring in the 1910s.
Commercial whaling by Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
ans of the species in the North Pacific began in the winter of 1845-46, when two United States ships, the Hibernia and the United States, under Captains Smith and Stevens, caught 32 in Magdalena Bay
Magdalena Bay
Bahía Magdalena is a 50 km long bay in Comondú Municipality along the western coast of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. It is protected from the Pacific Ocean by the sandy barrier islands of Isla Magdalena and Isla Santa Margarita....
. More ships followed in the two following winters, after which gray whaling in the bay was nearly abandoned because "of the inferior quality and low price of the dark-colored gray whale oil, the low quality and quantity of whalebone from the gray, and the dangers of lagoon whaling."
Gray whaling in Magdalena Bay was revived in the winter of 1855-56 by several vessels, mainly from San Francisco, including the ship Leonore, under Captain Charles Melville Scammon
Charles Melville Scammon
Charles Melville Scammon was a 19th-century whaleman, naturalist, and author. He was the first to hunt the gray whales of both Laguna Ojo de Liebre and San Ignacio Lagoon, the former once being called "Scammon's Lagoon" after him. In 1874 he wrote the book The Marine Mammals of the North-western...
. This was the first of eleven winters from 1855 through 1865 known as the "bonanza period", during which gray whaling along the coast of Baja California reached its peak. Not only were the whales taken in Magdalena Bay, but also by ships anchored along the coast from San Diego south to Cabo San Lucas
Cabo San Lucas
Cabo San Lucas , commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the municipality of Los Cabos in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. As of the 2010 census, the population was 68,463 people...
and from whaling stations from Crescent City
Crescent City, California
Crescent City is the county seat and only incorporated city in Del Norte County, California. Named for the crescent-shaped stretch of sandy beach south of the city, Crescent City had a total population of 7,643 in the 2010 census, up from 4,006 in the 2000 census...
in northern California south to San Ignacio Lagoon. During the same period, vessels targeting right
North Pacific Right Whale
The North Pacific right whale is a very large, robust baleen whale species that is now extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific subpopulation, that summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 50 animals...
and bowhead whale
Bowhead Whale
The bowhead whale is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to in length. This thick-bodied species can weigh to , second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than...
s in the Gulf of Alaska
Gulf of Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found.The entire shoreline of the Gulf is...
, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Western Arctic would take the odd gray whale if neither of the more desirable two species were in sight.
In December 1857, Charles Scammon, in the brig Boston, along with his schooner-tender Marin, entered Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Jack-Rabbit Spring Lagoon) or later known as Scammon's Lagoon (by 1860) and found one of the gray's last refuges. He caught 20 whales. He returned the following winter (1858–59) with the bark Ocean Bird and schooner tenders A.M. Simpson and Kate. In three months, he caught 47 cows, yielding 1700 barrels (270,278.4 l) of oil. In the winter of 1859-60, Scammon, again in the bark Ocean Bird, along with several other vessels, performed a similar feat of daring by entering San Ignacio Lagoon to the south where he discovered the last breeding lagoon. Within only a couple of seasons the lagoon was nearly devoid of whales.
Between 1846 and 1874, an estimated 8,000 gray whales were killed by American and European whalemen, with over half having been killed in the Magdalena Bay complex (Estero Santo Domingo, Magdalena Bay itself, and Almejas Bay) and by shore whalemen in California and Baja California. This, for the most part, does not take into account the large number of calves injured or left to starve after their mothers had been killed in the breeding lagoons. Since whalemen primarily targeted these new mothers, several thousand deaths should probably be added to the total. Shore whaling in California and Baja California continued after this period, until the early 20th century.
A second, shorter, and less intensive hunt occurred for gray whales in the eastern North Pacific. Only a few were caught from two whaling stations on the coast of California from 1919 to 1926, and a single station in Washington (1911–21) accounted for the capture of another. For the entire west coast of North America for the years 1919 to 1929, some 234 gray whales were caught. Only a dozen or so were taken by British Columbian stations, nearly all of them in 1953 at Coal Harbour
Coal Harbour, British Columbia
Coal Harbour in northern Vancouver Island is named after a small and unsuccessful local coal mine that was founded in 1883. The village's most successful industry, however, was whaling. It was the last whaling station in British Columbia when it closed in 1967...
. A whaling station in Richmond, California
Richmond, California
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
caught 311 gray whales for "scientific purposes" between 1964 and 1969. From 1961 to 1972, the Soviet Union caught 138 gray whales (they originally reported not having taken any). The only other significant catch was made in two seasons by the steam-schooner California off Malibu, California. In the winters of 1934-35 and 1935–36, the California anchored off Point Dume
Point Dume
Point Dume is a promontory on the coast of Malibu, California that juts out into the Pacific Ocean.Point Dume, a long bluff, forms the northern end of the Santa Monica Bay, and Point Dume Headlands Park affords a vista of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Santa Catalina Island...
in Paradise Cove, processing gray whales. In 1936, gray whales became protected in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
As of 2001, the California gray whale population had grown to about 26,000. As of 2011, the population of western Pacific (seas near Korea, Japan, and Kamchatka) gray whales was an estimated 130.
North Atlantic
The North Atlantic population may have been hunted to extinction in the 18th century. There is circumstantial evidence that whaling could have contributed to this population's decline, as the increase in whaling activity in the 17th and 18th century coincided with the population's disappearance. A. B. Van Deinse points out that the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725 as one target of early New England whalers, was almost certainly the gray whale. In his 1835 history of Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers. Gray whales (Icelandic sandlægja) were described in Iceland in the early seventeenth century.Conservation
Gray whales have been granted protection from commercial hunting by the International Whaling CommissionInternational Whaling Commission
The International Whaling Commission is an international body set up by the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling , which was signed in Washington, D.C...
(IWC) since 1949, and are no longer hunted on a large scale.
Limited hunting of gray whales has continued since that time, however, primarily in the Chukotka
Chukchi Peninsula
The Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula , at about 66° N 172° W, is the northeastern extremity of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen. It is bordered by the Chukchi Sea to the north, the Bering Sea to the south, and the Bering Strait to the...
region of northeastern Russia, where large numbers of gray whales spend the summer months. This hunt has been allowed under an "aboriginal/subsistence whaling" exception to the commercial-hunting ban. Antiwhaling groups have protested the hunt, saying the meat from the whales is not for traditional native consumption, but is used instead to feed animals in government-run fur farms; they cite annual catch numbers that rose dramatically during the 1940s, at the time when state-run fur farms were being established in the region. Although the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
government denied these charges as recently as 1987, in recent years the Russian government has acknowledged the practice. The Russian IWC delegation has said that the hunt is justified under the aboriginal/subsistence exemption, since the fur farms provide a necessary economic base for the region's native population.
Currently, the annual quota for the gray whale catch in the region is 140 per year. Pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Russia, the Makah tribe of Washington claimed four whales from the IWC quota established at the 1997 meeting. With the exception of a single gray whale killed in 1999, the Makah people have been prevented from hunting by a series of legal challenges, culminating in a United States federal appeals court
Court of Appeals
A court of appeals is an appellate court generally.Court of Appeals may refer to:*Military Court of Appeals *Corte d'Assise d'Appello *Philippine Court of Appeals*High Court of Appeals of Turkey*United States courts of appeals...
decision in December 2002 that required the National Marine Fisheries Service
National Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the...
to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement
Environmental impact statement
An environmental impact statement , under United States environmental law, is a document required by the National Environmental Policy Act for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS is a tool for decision making...
. On September 8, 2007, five members of the Makah tribe shot a gray whale using high powered rifles in spite of the decision. The whale died within 12 hours, sinking while heading out to sea.
As of 2008, the IUCN regards the gray whale as being of "Least Concern" from a conservation perspective. However, the specific subpopulation in the northwest Pacific is regarded as being "Critically Endangered". The northwest Pacific population is also listed as endangered by the U.S. government’s National Marine Fisheries Service
National Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the...
under the U.S. Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
.
In their breeding grounds in Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
, Mexican law protects whales in their lagoons while still permitting whale watching. Gray whales are protected under Canada's Species at Risk Act
Species at Risk Act
The Species at Risk Act is a piece of Canadian federal legislation which became law in Canada on December 12, 2002. It is designed to meet one of Canada's key commitments under the International Convention on Biological Diversity. The goal of the Act is to protect endangered or threatened...
which obligates Canadian governments to prepare management plans for the whales and consider the interests of the whales when permitting development.
Threats
According to the Government of Canada's Management Plan for gray whales, threats to the eastern North Pacific population of gray whales include:- increased human activities in their breeding lagoons in Mexico
- climate change
- acute noise
- the threat of toxic spills
- aboriginal whaling
- entanglement with fishing gear
- boat collisions
- impacts from fossil fuel exploration and extraction
Captivity
Because of their size and need to migrate, gray whales have rarely been held in captivity, and then only for brief periods of time.In 1972, a three-month-old gray whale named Gigi (II) was captured for brief study by Dr. David W. Kenney, and then released near San Diego.
In January 1997, the newborn baby whale J.J. was found helpless near the coast of Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, 4.2 metres (13.8 ft) long and 800 kilograms (1,763.7 lb) in weight. Nursed back to health in SeaWorld
SeaWorld
SeaWorld is a United States chain of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, and animal theme parks owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. The parks feature captive orca, sea lion, and dolphin shows and zoological displays featuring various other marine animals. There are operations in Orlando,...
San Diego, she was released into the Pacific Ocean on March 31, 1998, 9 metres (29.5 ft) long and 8500 kilograms (18,739.3 lb) in mass. She shed her radio transmitter packs three days later.