LAPUSH – Chris Morganroth knows the gray whales will come to LaPush every year beginning in mid-March.
“I saw one just the other day,” said Morganroth, a Quileute tribal council member.
“It was sticking its fin out of the water – just like it was waving at me.
“Last year, we didn’t see them that much. But this year, there are a lot of them.”
The gray whales show up every year during their migration north from their warm birthing lagoons in Baja California.
They travel almost 10,000 miles – believed to be the longest annual migration of any mammal – along the west coast to their summer feeding grounds off the coasts of Alaska and Siberia.
Up to 45 feet in length and weighing 30 to 40 tons, the grays can usually be seen off the coast until late May or early June.
The whales feed in the shallow waters off LaPush, sometimes just outside the surf zone, taking in mouthfuls of sediment and sieving it though baleen plates for tiny shrimp-like animals like amphipods and other bottom-dwelling animals.
The best place to see the whales is along LaPush’s First Beach, but those visiting the beaches near Kalaloch or Cape Flattery in Neah Bay might see a few as well.
Said Wayne Perryman, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
“We recently did a survey to see about how many [gray whales] we have.
“There aren’t final numbers yet, but we are seeing very similar numbers to what we saw in 2000 [about 22,000].”
Onlookers can spy one or more whales with binoculars, or even the naked eye.
The whales are easiest to spot on a clear day with calm water.
Onlookers may be able to spy one or more whales with just a pair of binoculars, or even the naked eye.
To snap a shot of the whales, a camera with a telephoto lens is best.
The key to finding them is to look first for the spray, then watch that area to see if a whale peeks out of the water.
The spray, which some assume to be water, is actually steam, Morganroth said.
The whales’ bodies maintain a temperature of more than 100 degrees, so when they blow air out, it is rapidly cooled, creating steam.
“It is just like you going and breathing out on a cold day,” Morganroth said.
Occasionally, orcas – which have been called “killer whales” but which are actually dolphins – are visible from the beaches of LaPush. Morganroth said, but the timing of those appearances is hard to predict.
Changes in climate have changed their feeding pattern and thus their migration pattern, Morganroth said.
