Point Reyes Light - December 28, 2000
Gray whales start passing by Point Reyes Lighthouse
By Stephen Barrett
As the southbound gray whale migration peaks over the next few weeks, visitors to the Point Reyes Lighthouse can expect increasingly good chances to view them on their journey to the Sea of Cortez.
Park rangers have recently spotted the first whales to pass the West Marin coast. "We’ve probably seen 10 so far," said ranger Beth Brindle on Friday. "They’re trickling in."
California gray whales spend roughly a third of their life engaged in the 10,000-mile roundtrip from their feeding grounds off Alaska to their birthing grounds off Baja California. It is the longest migration of any mammal by land or sea.
Amazingly, the mammals fast during their southerly swim, having stored enough energy in their blubber to make the migration. Even more amazingly, California gray whales subsist entirely on amphipods, small crustaceans the size of a thumbnail which they filter out of the muddy ocean floor.
Tend to travel in pairs
Pregnant females lead the southern migration, which generally occurs further offshore than the return trip to Alaska. The return trip begins in February and peaks in mid-March with mothers and new-born calves bringing up the rear.
On both trips, the whales often use the "buddy system" and travel with a companion, only to separate when they reach their destination. During the migration, they might be viewed from shore when they surface for a breath of air, or less commonly as they rise mostly above the surface (breaching) or lift their head from the water and sort of bounce along (spyhopping).
Because of limited parking, visitors to the Point Reyes National Seashore wishing to observe the migration on weekends and holidays must take a shuttlebus from the Drake’s Beach parking lot to the lighthouse and Chimney Rock. Sir Francis Drake Boulevard west of the South Beach parking lot will be closed.
Shuttlebus service
The National Seashore will begin its shuttlebus service on Saturday, Dec. 30. Tickets are available at the Ken Patrick Visitor Center at Drakes Beach. No reservations are required; however, tickets must be bought by 3 p.m.
The California gray whale was nearly hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It is now believed that the population has fully recovered, thanks to an international agreement in 1946 to protect them from exploitation and their listing as an endangered species in 1970.
Gray whales were hunted to extinction in the Atlantic Ocean. Elsewhere, only a handful still survive off the coast of Korea.