Spotting whales is one of those things that grounds you in how beautiful life is and gives you a profound sense of gratitude.
Gray whales make one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, traveling about 10,000 miles round-trip and in some cases upwards of 14,000 miles between Mexico and Alaska. They are listed as endangered in the Pacific Ocean.
Grays can be almost 50 feet long as adults (15 feet at birth) and eat some of the smallest creatures in the sea. They use their baleen to sift massive amounts of shrimp from along the sea floor.
Between March and May we see some of these whales detour into the Stait of Juan de Fuca, into Puget Sound and into Saratoga Passage, off Everett and into Port Susan. This group of about 14 Grays started coming into the Sound around 1991. They are here to feast on the ghost shrimp and fatten up on their way to their prime feeding grounds up north in Alaska.
These Grays are known locally as the Sounders. They are a special group that has somehow discovered a secret stash of tasty treats in the shallow sandy waters around Whidbey Island. While many of their buddies starve to death before making it to Alaska this group found an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's not without some risk. These big guys wait for high tide so they can manuever their massive bodies into the shallows and scoop up hundreds of pounds a day of these treats. When the Sounders show up, they are hungrey and emaciated. Many of them might not have eaten for seven months. Some wanna-be Sounders follow the veteran Sounders but don't have the risk tollerance to muck around in the shallows and risk getting stranded.
More info:
- Cascadia Research Collective
- Gray Whale Identification Guide
- Seattle Times - Gray whales learn daring feeding strategy in Puget Sound: Digging for ghost shrimp at high tide
- NOAA - Gray Whales
- Wikipedia - Gray Whales
- Ghost Shrimp - Washington State Department of Natural Resources Report
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