Project Description
The majority of California gray whales migrate from breeding grounds around Baja California, Mexico to feeding grounds in the Bering Sea. However, some gray whales do not complete the long migration, but remain and feed in various inshore locations along the migration route from California to British Columbia and beyond during the summer and fall. We have studied these whales in collaboration with Cascadia Research Collective and other researchers to estimate their abundance, distribution, survival and movements. This information has been used to help evaluate the potential impact of the proposed Makah Indian Tribe's gray whale hunt along the northern Washington coast.
Issues & Justification
Past surveys of gray whales along Oregon, Washington and the west coast of Vancouver Island produced the basic knowledge we needed to develop the EIS and harvest management of gray whales. It is essential that we continue photo-identification studies of gray whales in the Pacific coast feeding aggregation to improve our understanding of site fidelity and within-year and between-year movements of gray whales to help refine our estimates of gray whale abundance in the feeding aggregation and the recruitment rate of new whales. Concurrent photo-identification surveys by collaborating researchers along the west coast will provide detailed gray whale distribution data to expand the research conducted in northern Washington and off Vancouver Island.
Goals
- Assess the abundance and distribution of the Pacific coast feeding aggregation of gray whales.
- Using photo-identification studies, determine the identity of individual gray whales which remain in northern Washington waters during spring and summer months.
- In collaboration with other researchers along the west coast, we will study the annual and inter-annual movements of gray whales and their site fidelity.
Methods
Surveys will be conducted using the vessel 'Research 3', NMML's 24-ft. Almar, which is equipped with a bow platform for photographing and biopsying whales. Gray whales will be photographed using digital cameras. NMML will continue using Cascadia Research as the gray whale image repository and contract other collaborating researchers along the west coast for photo-identification of gray whales in their respective research areas. NMML will conduct surveys off the northern Washington coast every 2 weeks from April through October. Monthly surveys will be conducted off the west coast of Vancouver Island from July to September. A survey will also be conducted off Kodiak Island, AK where recent matches have been made to whales in our local area if sufficient funding is available.