24, 1959f personnel on the vessel 

 Tacoma saw more than 200 gray whales 

 from about 19 miles off Destruction 

 Island to near James Island. On that 

 day they saw a bloated, dead gray 

 whale rise to the surface. On April 

 25 the vessel ran out of the gray-whale 

 concentration 9 miles off James Island 

 (C. H. Fiscus, T. C. Juelson, and 

 K. Niggol, in lit.). Observers on the 

 Canadian research vessel Pacific Ocean 

 saw gray whales off Cape Flattery, 

 Washington during the last 2 weeks 

 in May (Gordon C. Pike, in lit.). 



Annually, large numbers of whales 

 concentrate close to the west shore 

 of Vancouver Island in March and 

 April, many passing through the mile- 

 wide channel between Solander Island 

 and Cape Cook on the northern part 

 of Vancouver Island. After passing 

 along the west coast of Vancouver 



Island, the whales disappear in a 

 westerly direction into the North 

 Pacific Ocean. As late as May 17, 

 1959, gray whales were observed off 

 the north end of Vancouver Island 

 by whalers from the station at Coal 

 Harbour, Quatsino Sound. 



Nine gray whales were taken for 

 scientific purposes in April 1952 from 

 the station at Coal Harbour under 

 special permit issued in accordance 

 with the provisions of the International 

 Convention for the Regulation of Whal- 

 ing. Northward migrating whales were 

 too thin to be of commercial value. 



Eight gray whales, in pairs, were 

 seen on May 11, 1957, moving very 

 close to the kelp between Kodiak and 

 Ugak Islands toward Narrow Cape, 

 Alaska (F. Wilke, in lit.). 



BEHAVIOR STUDIES 



BEHAVIOR' DURING MIGRATION 



Actions which will enable them to 

 arrive quickly at the breeding grounds 

 seem completely to dominate the be- 

 havior of gray whales as they swim 

 past San Diego. They do not wander 

 or feed. Occasionally, whales stop 

 and attempt to court or mate, but even 

 these rarely stay long or wander from 

 the migration route. 



Orientation to Land 



Close adherence to the coasts of 

 southern California and Baja Cali- 

 fornia is an outstanding feature of 

 their migratory behavior. The herd 

 passes along the coast, skirting head- 

 lands and sometimes cutting across 

 bays, generally remaining within three 

 miles from shore. Such behavior must 

 help them find the entrance of shallow 

 bays and lagoons for calving and mat- 

 ing. 



A gray whale will often thrust its 

 head completely out of the water, 

 almost to the flippers, and hold it out 

 for about 10 seconds. Or when "blow- 



ing" at the surface, the whale will 

 merely raise its head out as far as 

 the eyes. Subsequently, the whale's 

 movennents will suggest reorientation 

 based on visual stimuli. Gray whales 

 sometimes follow the walls of deep 

 submarine canyons in La JoUa Bay 

 instead of the shoreline. This suggests 

 that they may be following, in pref- 

 erence to the coast, a bottom contour 

 of 100 to 150 feet depth. 



The extent to which vision may aid 

 navigation along the shore, nor the 

 extent to which darkness may slow 

 travel, could not be measured. Fog is 

 believed by some observers to slow 

 travel but this has not been proved. 



Daily Cycle of Observations 



During a count in 1954-55 from 

 Point Loma, sightings of 1,319 whales 

 were recorded by hour of day. For 

 each consecutive hour between 7 a. m. 

 and 5 p. m., the following number of 

 sightings was recorded: 50, 145, 113, 

 103, 134, 99 (noon to 1 p. m.), 156, 

 189, 175, 155. The higher figures of 

 afternoon are probably the result of 



15 



