||| FROM INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS |||
From San Francisco Bay to the Oregon coast to Washington’s Puget Sound, the die-off has occurred all along the gray whale’s annual West Coast migration route. It’s a 10,000 to 14,000-mile round trip—the longest migration of any mammal—between the warm waters off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, where gray whales give birth and nurse calves, and the Arctic, where they normally feast all summer on ocean-bottom crustaceans.
It’s in those traditional ocean-floor dining areas in the Bering and Chukchi seas where climate change appears to be triggering mass starvation among a whale stock that had, until recently, recovered nicely from the depredations of commercial whaling.
“The fattest and most nutritious of the shrimp-like crustaceans that the whales eat are no longer as fat. A lot of things in those waters are changing all at once because of warming trends.”
READ FULL ARTICLE
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
Leave A Comment