This week we head up the road to appreciate again the California coast in winter. Many of us think of one particular migrant in appreciating the nearshore ocean—the California gray whale, also known as the Western or Pacific gray whale. A close-up view of California’s official (and largest) mammal is life-changing. Dark, barnacled heads shoot up out of the ocean to breathe, blasting saltwater out their blowholes with the force of a firehose. That spouting is how you’ll first spot them all along the California coast.
Once endangered by whaling, as so many whale species still are, the California or eastern Pacific grays have fully recovered. There was once a north Atlantic population of gray whales, extinct since the 1800s. The western Pacific or Korean population may also be extinct; rare individuals spotted there are probably California outliers. In fact, California’s gray whales may be repopulating historic and prehistoric territories. Some have been spotted near British Columbia; in the East Siberian Sea; off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, later (the same whale) near Barcelona, Spain; and even off the coast of Namibia—the first time in recent history that gray whales have been observed in the Southern Hemisphere. Researchers think grays are traveling via the Northwest Passage, now fully navigable due to climate change and the related loss of Arctic sea ice.
Traveling closer to the West Coast of the U.S. because of new, climate-related feeding patterns—warming oceans are reducing krill populations, a prime food source—more and more whales, including endangered humpbacks, and other marine mammals, are traveling closer to shore, getting tangled in crab pot lines and fishing nets, being killed or injured as a result.
But back to the gray whales: They feed almost nonstop from April to October in the Arctic seas between Alaska and Siberia. Fat and sassy with an extra 6 to 12 inches of blubber onboard, early in October they head south on their 6,000-mile journey to the warmer waters of Baja—pregnant females first, traveling alone or in small groups. Larger groups of older males and nonpregnant females follow. courting and mating all the way. By mid-December to early January, most migrants are somewhere between Monterey and San Diego.
Males, newly pregnant females, and young whales go first on the trip north. Cows and calves leave last, late March through April, typically traveling quite close to shore, for the protection of youngsters, which makes them easy to see from land.
The Monterey area is excellent for whale watching almost year-round—at other times, you’ll see blue whales and humpbacks—because of Monterey Bay’s deep underwater canyons. The Oceanic Society, a nonprofit research and conservation group, offers wonderful winter whale-watching trips from both San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, and, at other times, day trips to the rugged Farallon Islands just offshore, now part of an international UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Generally speaking, the farther north along the coast you go, the fewer crowds you’ll find—meaning, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt Counties are about perfect for landlubbing introverts. Make sure it’s a clear, crisp day and head for higher ground—the Rim Trail at Patrick’s Point State Park, say, or Trinidad Head, Table Bluff just south of Humboldt Bay, the Mendocino Headlands and all those coast-hugging state parks and vantage points in Sonoma. And bring binoculars!
