Gray whales make comeback off Sonoma Coast 

Clark Mason, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Bodega Head provides one of the best places on the Sonoma Coast to spot the whales as they come past Doran Beach, and around the mouth of the bay, just outside the surf line.

This year’s parade of gray whales along the California coast is one of the best in decades, continuing a remarkable comeback story for a species that was hunted to the brink of extinction and in more recent years experienced high death rates due to food scarcity.
Marine biologists say that at the moment, a population estimated at more than 20,000 gray whales appears to be healthy and reproducing well, as compared to the hundreds that washed up dead and the emaciated individuals that were observed 15 years ago as changing oceanographic conditions eliminated or modified their food supply.
“Right now, it’s a good story — a population that recovered and is doing well,” said Wayne Perryman, a federal marine biologist who has been studying gray whales for 22 years. “The animals look robust and healthy.”

Whale tour boat operators are reporting a banner year for sightings.

“This was the most impressive gray whale season that I’ve had in all my years,” said Capt. Rick Powers, a Bodega Bay skipper who has been conducting tours for 31 years.

 “We saw gray whales every single trip this season. It’s very unusual to go out every trip and bat a thousand,” he said of the trips he’s led so far this spring.

Despite the rosy picture, scientists are concerned the whales face continued peril from the unfolding effects of climate change. And advocates for the leviathans, such as the California Gray Whale Coalition, worry that a Washington state Indian tribe’s current proposal to resume traditional gray whale hunting could open the door for more widespread killing of grays, as well as humpbacks.

The gray whales, which spotters say make up 95 percent of the whales seen off the Sonoma Coast, face a host of challenges, from both man-made obstacles and natural predators, as they head toward their Arctic feeding grounds, where they gorge during the summer on tons of minuscule, shrimplike bottom-dwelling amphipods.

Read more via: Whales make comeback off Sonoma Coast | The Press Democrat

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