Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE GREY WHALE
The grey whale is
one of the largest
of its species: the
female can reach up
to 15m in length, and
the male up to 14m.
Their adult weight
can range from 15
to 30 tons. The grey
whale's diet consists
mainly of shrimp and
small fi sh, and it can
consume up to 1,200kg of food per day. In the spring of each year,
thousands of visitors descend upon the Pacifi c Rim National Park
Reserve in the Tofi no area in the hopes of spotting grey whales off the
shoreline as they travel north.
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© iStockphoto.com / Dale Walsh
The grey whale's migration is the longest undertaken by a mammal:
an impressive round trip of 19,500km between the northern waters
of the Bering Sea and the warm waters of Mexico's Baja California
peninsula, at a rate of 60km to 80km per day. From December to
February, grey whales give birth to their young near Baja California.
In mid-February, the females and the whale calves start their migra-
tion north, followed by the males. Certain whales start to feed upon
reaching the waters that surround Vancouver Island; others wait for
the approach of the Bering and Chukchi Seas off Alaska and Siberia.
Over the summer spent in these glacial waters, grey whales create
enormous reserves of food that can reach from 16% to 30% of their
body weight. In October, the beginning of winter heralds the return
migratory journey to Baja California, and the whales live from their
stored provisions.
The grey whale virtually disappeared in the middle of the 1850s.
Hunters abruptly abandoned the hunt, before taking it up again around
1914, once again virtually decimating the population. But since 1937,
the grey whale has been a protected species.
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