Gray Whale Tutorial
Gray Whales Eschrichtius robustus

The Sounders (NPS gray whales) produced by Cascadia Research Collective.

Here are some facts and resources to help you get to know Gray whales better. You can also visit "Rosie" the Gray whale skeleton at the Coupeville Wharf (complete with baleen), or the Gray whale skeletons at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, the Poulsbo Marine Science Center, or the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

The Gray whale gets its name from its mottled gray skin, which is covered with barnacles and whale lice. They are 15' - 16' at birth, live to be 50 years or more, and grow to a length of 40' - 45' and a weight of approx. 30 tons, reaching sexual maturity at five to eleven years of age.

The North Puget Sound gray whales, or Sounders, are part of the greater Eastern Pacific gray whale population. They are a unique and special group of roughly a dozen whales, some of whom have been returning here since 1990. Studies by Cascadia Research Collective have shown them to be feeding and interacting with one another both above and below the surface. Although gray whales have long been thought to be solitary whales who do not form long term bonds, the two individuals who first discovered the Puget Sound ghost shrimp in 1990, a known male and female, continue to spend time together when they are here.

It is believed that the Sounders first came into Puget Sound during past periods of low food abundance, including the Unusual Mortality Event (UME) of 1999/2000, and have since returned to feed on ghost shrimp in the spring before continuing their migration north. So far this year, four of the Sounders have returned to Puget Sound, and as of last year all of the regular individuals had survived the current Unusual Mortality Event and returned to feed here. A recent photogrammetry study by Cascadia Research and SR3 (Sealife Response, Rehabilitation, and Research) showed that when the Sounders first arrived in Puget Sound in 2020, they were quite thin, but then filled out during their time feeding here. This underscores how important ghost shrimp are to these whales and it may in fact be key to their survival during this current UME. In addition to the regular individuals, several new whales also came searching for prey in recent years and have found the ghost shrimp. Orca Network has long advocated for protection of this important prey resource by requesting that Washington Department of Natural Resources suspend ghost shrimp harvest when the gray whales are present, and keep some areas off limits to harvest to allow for important research to be conducted.

Gray whales are appreciated for their friendly approaches to people in small boats in their mating and calving grounds in Mexico, where they are often seen spy-hopping, lobtailing and breaching.

There are 200-300 "seasonal resident" Gray whales that spend the spring, summer, and fall feeding from California to SE Alaska, known as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG).

Gray whale feeding pits at low tide in Saratoga Passage.

Some Gray whales visiting inland waters seem unfamiliar with the feeding areas, and are often emaciated when they arrive, possibly already dying of starvation. Hungry Grays usually arrive in Puget Sound in spring and summer, after four or five months in southern waters with little to eat.

364 Gray whales stranded in 1998/1999, mostly along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska, most of them with thin or dessicated blubber layers. Researchers believe the deaths were caused by a decline in amphipods which Gray whales feed upon in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. This decline is due in part to the combined effects of rising sea temperature and increased predation from the growing population of Gray whales themselves.

Gray whales need enough food to survive the 10,000+ mile round-trip migration from Alaska to Baja. Along with humpback whales, Gray whales make the longest migration of any marine mammal.

Much has been learned just since 2010 about gray whale migrations. See: Scientists see big 'scientific event' as Pacific whales turn up far from home for more.

At one time there were three Gray whale populations worldwide: a north Atlantic population, now extinct, the victims of over-hunting by the early 1700's; a Korean or western north Pacific population now extremely depleted, also from over-hunting; and the eastern north Pacific population, the only large surviving population, known as California Gray whales. They, too, were hunted to the edge of extinction in the 1850's after the discovery of their calving lagoons, and again in the early 1900's with the introduction of floating factories.

Gray whales were given partial protection in 1937 and full protection in 1947 by the International Whaling Commission. Since that time the eastern North Pacific Gray whale population has made a remarkable recovery and is now probably close to their population size before commercial whaling began.

More on Gray Whales:

Websites:

• Cascadia Research - Gray Whale Hotline #: 1-800-747-7329
  This is a wonderful, complete everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-Gray-Whales site!

• Whale Spoken Here - Why do they migrate? How long does the migration last? The Whale Watching Spoken Here program places volunteers at great whale watching sites during Watch Weeks so they can teach others while watching the whales too.

Good Gray Reading:

• Gray Whales: Wandering Giants by Robert H. Busch

• Eye of the Whale, Epic Passage From Baja to Siberia by Dick Russell