California Gray Whales

California Gray Whales (Eschrichtius robustus)

The Gray Whale gets it's name not so much for the color of its skin, which is essentially black, but because of the grayish appearance caused by the accumulation of  marine parasites... barnacles and whale lice that attach themselves to their skin. Measuring 30 to 45 feet as adults, and weighing about a ton a foot, the Gray Whale is a medium sized whale - smaller than their larger Blue and Humpback Whale cousins, but still much larger than any land animal on earth today.

Gray Whales do not have a dorsal fin as the other great whales do. Instead they display a series of "knuckles" along the after portion of the back. As with all baleen whales, they have double-ported blowholes, giving their spout a distinctive heart shaped appearance when viewed from behind.

They are one of the most predictable of all whale herds. Traveling some 8,000-12,000 miles every year from their feeding grounds in the cold nutrient rich arctic waters where they feed on bottom crustaceans, called amphipods, which they furrow out of the silt at the mouths of the northern rivers. In fall and winter they migrate all the way south to the warm water, shallow lagoons of Baja California where they mate and bear their young.

This predictable pattern brings them close along the coastal areas of the entire West Coast which made them particularly vulnerable to whalers during the whaling era, and now making them accessible to thousands of whale watchers every year from Vancouver to Mexico.

The story of the California Gray Whales is one of the great environmental success stories of this century. Twice hunted to near extinction in the last hundred years, the Gray Whale population has rebounded in the last 50 years to an estimated population of nearly 30,000 animals. In fact, most scientists feel that there are as many California Gray Whales today as there ever were.

Even the Korean Gray Whale, a taxonomically identical animal that also feeds in the cold northern waters but migrates down the western shores of the Pacific Basin along the coasts of Manchuria, Korea and Japan, has shown an increase in numbers now that they are protected. It is hoped that this stock will continue to increase and that we will once again have two strong herds of  Gray Whales in the Pacific Basin.

Gray Whales travel in groups of 3 to 12 or more animals called pods. Moving at a slow but steady speed of about 3-5 knots and will average about 100 miles per day. Amazingly, since they feed primarily in the Arctic and feed very little, if at all, on the migration, these great animals make most of this long trip on stored body energy. This is particularly remarkable in the case of the calf bearing females who, after going through the rigors of calving, must make the long migration back to their feeding grounds while producing gallons of fat-rich milk a day to feed their calfﾅ all from fat stored in their layer of "blubber". 

During El Nino years, however, there is evidence that these animals may be "nutrition stressed" - as they have been seen in the Santa Barbara Channel feeding in patches of krill, even in the company of humpback and blue whales. Since they are not well equipped to be top water feeders - they lack a significant throat pouch, for example - they must expend a lot of energy to harvest the smaller, more mobile krill.

In the Santa Barbara Channel the southern migration takes the animals near the Channel Islands, especially through the gap between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands, beginning in late December and continuing through February. The northern migration, however, brings the herd much closer to Santa Barbara. During the months of February, March, April and mid-May the entire herd will pass within just a few miles of Santa Barbara Harbor. In fact, during the months of April-May which is the cow/calf migration, most of the animals are seen within a few hundred yards of shore.  Often they are just at the surf line, easily visible from bluffs along the shore. The cows hug the shoreline in an effort to hide the calves from marauding packs of Orcas, or Killer Whales, which will attack and kill the young Gray Whales. Over the years, we have witnessed several Orca attacks on Gray Whale calves in this area from the decks of the CONDOR.

Gray Whale watching trips on the new CONDOR EXPRESS  run from mid-February to mid-May. We run 3 trips daily at 9am, noon and 3pm. Reservations can be made by calling 805-882-0088 or (toll free) 1-888-77WHALE. Group rates are available.