As with the autumn/winter migration, in spring/summer some gray 

 whales do not complete the migration to subarctic or arctic waters, 

 electing instead to spend summer/fall in waters of California (numer- 

 ous sites from Monterey Bay northward), Washington, British Colum- 

 bia, or Alaska (Cape St. Elias, Kodiak Island and on the south shore of 

 Bristol Bayj. The numbers of animals m these "summering' popula- 

 tions appear to be increasing along with the growth ot the population 

 at large. By recent accounts there are some 17,000 gray whales in the 

 North Pacific and the population is growing at a slight rate annually. 



Figure 6. In recent years, numerous gray whales have been found entangled 

 in gill nets set in their migratory corridors. Growing gil! net fisheries could 

 pose a significant threat, particularly to voung animals, f Photos at Ocean 

 Beach, San Diego, California, January 1985 by S. Leathenvood. above; and 

 off Ventura, February 1985 by K. Connally, lett.j 



Humpback. Whale 



Megaptrra novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781) 



The humpback whale has a coastal distribution on both sides of the 

 North Pacific and also occurs regularly and in relatively large numbers 

 around offshore islands, such as the Revillagigedos off Mexico, the 

 Hawaiian islands in the mid-Pacific, and the Ryukus off southern 

 Japan. These well known whales (often featured in film and slide 

 presentations and familiar to many because of thier complex and 

 haunting "songs") were hunted by primitive methods off Japan and 

 along the Pacific northwest coast of North America from very early 

 times. Yankee pelagic whalers killed some humpbacks during the 

 nineteenth century, but mainly when more valuable species, like the 

 right and sperm whale, were unavailable. 



It has been estimated that there were about 15,000 humpbacks 

 present in the North Pacific around the turn of the century, divided in 

 unknown proportions among three putative stocks: Mexican — off the 

 mainland Mexican and Baja California coasts and around the Re- 

 villagigedos; Hawaiian; and Asian - around the Mariana, Bonin and 

 Ryuku islands and Taiwan. It should be noted that long term studies of 

 humpback whales in the Atlantic, using photo-documentation and 

 individual identification to study movements and stock relationships, 

 have forced constant revision of some rather simplistic views once 

 widely held about "stocks" there. The result has been a more complex 

 model of relationships between "summering" and "wintering" stocks 

 of North Atlantic humpback whales. Comparable work underway in 

 the Pacific may well result in such revisions here. 



