The following information has been published by NOAA Southwest Fisheries :
A new abundance estimate of the gray whale population that migrates along the West Coast suggests their numbers have increased since last year.
Researchers at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center estimate that the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population is between 15,930 to 20,530, or an average of about 17,750 gray whales. That is a jump from last year’s estimate—one of the lowest since counting began in the late 1960s—which numbered between 11,690 to 13,190, or about 12,890 whales.
The apparent increase is welcome news and similar to fluctuations seen in some previous years. Yet, it raises questions about the assumptions we have tested and used in the past to inform our analytical approaches to the population estimate. We are examining:
- The relationship between demographics and environmental variability
- Whale migratory cadence and timing
- Previous assumptions made about whale behavior used to calculate the abundance estimation
The new numbers are based on a count of whales migrating south prior to their return migration north. Many gray whales stranded along the West Coast this spring before reaching their Arctic feeding grounds near Alaska. Some of the stranded whales were skinny or emaciated, suggesting they are not finding sufficient food to sustain their round-trip migration between Alaska and Mexico.
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