Spring Whale Watch Week: Here are Oregon’s 10 most famous gray whales to keep your eyes peeled for

Gray whale populations are slowly recovering, and whale watchers in Oregon are set to celebrate with an extended Spring Whale Watch Week on the coast.

The spring whale watching event is returning to 15 Oregon state park sites up and down the coastline, where volunteers will be staffed to help visitors spot the cetaceans from March 23 to 31.

That schedule is three days longer than the 2023 event, giving people more opportunities to spot the whales with help of a trained whale watcher. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department said the decision to extend the event came in light of a recent announcement by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ending the unusual mortality event for gray whale populations on the West Coast.

Here’s everything you need to know to identify Oregon’s 10 most well known and documented gray whales:

Researchers with Oregon State University have spent so much time with our local gray whales that they know them by name. Now, they’re sharing those observations to help casual whale watchers become better acquainted with the animals and to help raise money for additional research through the their Adopt a Whale campaign.

Look closely and you might spot whales like Moby Dick, who has large white splotches, Orange Knuckles, notable by the orange bumps on his spine, or Scarlett, who has a large scar on her back.

Researchers at OSU use distinctive markings and injuries to distinguish between each whale, they said. By combining photo identification with other observations like drone footage and fecal samples, they can infer even more information about the whales, like health, behavior and relationships.

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Nearly 20,000 gray whales call the Pacific coastline home, migrating annually between winter breeding grounds in Baja California and spring feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska. A much smaller group of about 250 gray whales remain in the Pacific Northwest to feed, swimming between northern California and British Columbia, according to researchers.

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Growing to nearly 50 feet long, gray whales are among the largest animals on the Earth. They typically travel and live in pods with relatives, feeding on smaller organisms like mysid shrimp and crab larvae through baleen plates that filter food from the water.

In 2019, researchers declared an “unusual mortality event” after more than 120 dead gray whales washed up on Pacific coast beaches, theorizing that the population may have grown too large for the ecosystem to sustain. The whales’ also face threat from orcas, which often hunt gray whale calves and sometimes attack adults.

Visitors to the Oregon coast can spot whales during winter and spring migrations, or try their luck for a closer view on one of several whale watching tours, most of which leave out of Depoe Bay.

See if you can spot some of the distinctive locals while you’re out there. Oregon State University’s Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory has highlighted 10 of the most commonly seen gray whales that live in the Pacific Coast Feeding Group along the coastline of the Pacific Northwest.

-- Mark Graves and Jamie Hale, The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com

503-860-3060

mgraves@oregonian.com

@mark_w_graves

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