Kieran
Mulvaney, Discovery News
The pregnant
females leave first, setting out from the winter breeding grounds of Mexico ’s Baja California
on the long journey north to Arctic waters off Alaska
and Siberia . During the process the nautical
families treat viewers along the west coast of the United
States and Canada to one of the great sights
of the natural world: the annual migration of the eastern Pacific gray whales.
Gray whale breaching. CREDIT: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration |
For those
pregnant whales, this year’s migration has been underway for about two weeks.
For the whales that bring up the rear – mothers with calves – it will be perhaps
another month yet until the young whales are ready to begin the journey. In
between, in order, come non-pregnant females without calves, adult males, and
then immature whales; all of them will swim up to 10,000 km (6,200 miles) to
the north and then, after a summer of gorging in the Arctic ,
will cover a similar distance on the return voyage.
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