The gray whales have begun their epic return trip to Alaska, reports the educational website Journey North in its latest update about the world's most dramatic mammal migration.
"Today was a great, gray-whale day," reported Michael H. Smith, of Gray Whales Count near Coleta, Calif. on Feb. 27. "We started with five rambunctious whales that blew a lot and changed order for the entire hour and a half of tracking. What a great way to start the morning."
Journey North tracks the northward movement of gray whales, American Robins, monarch butterflies as well as a few other critters and plants, relying on volunteer spotters and school children for most of its dispatches. In the fall, the site follows life's inexorable southward retreat in the face of advancing winter.
Following the eastern Pacific's gray whale migration is one of the organization's highlights, drawing on observers from Southern California to the Aleutian Chain.
Every year, thousands of the bottom-feeding whales travel from winter mating grounds in Baja California up the west coast of North America around the southern rim of Alaska, including the mouth of Resurrection Bay off Seward. Their final destination lies further west and north, in feeding areas of the Bering and Chukchi seas. Their 10,000-mile round-trip is the longest known annual migration by any mammal.
The grays are baleen cetaceans that can grow up to 50 feet in length and 40 tons in weight on a diet of crustaceans and clams sifted from sea-bottom muck. Although nearly driven to extinction by 19th century whaling, the eastern Pacific population has since recovered and may number as many as 20,000 animals.
All during the season, Journey North publishes regular updates, including this one posted by Smith on Sunday.
"The last day of February was further indication that the migration flow has begun," he wrote. "We saw eight northbound gray whales and that made twenty-one for the past two days, a nice pace for this time."