Captains of boats operating whale-watching expeditions for tourists in California said sightings have dropped from 25 a day in good years to just five a day this year.
The grey whale had been considered a success story by environmentalists and it was taken off the endangered list in 1994 after numbers rose.
In recent years the 30-tonne creatures have become a common sight migrating along the coast between Alaska and Mexico.
In June the International Whaling Commission will consider allowing 1,400 grey whales to be hunted over the next decade but some scientists said the latest anecdotal evidence showed it was too soon to allow hunting.
When grey whales were listed as endangered in 1970 an estimated 12,000 remained. A moratorium on commercial hunting and close monitoring helped the population reach more than 20,000.
But the recovery in numbers led to a decline in efforts to monitor them and the last count being looked at by the commission was conducted in 2006.
A separate study last year showed the number of calves fell from more than 1,000 in 2006 to 312 in 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7582723/Whale-watchers-report-large-drop-in-sightings-of-grey-whales.html
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