The surprise discovery of a gray whale swimming inside Seattle’s Ballard Locks this week startled onlookers and created a media buzz. The thin whale has been seen around the locks since March 21st.

All sightings of whales and other cetaceans should be reported as soon as possible to Orca Network via email. The photo at left shows the typically mottled skin of a gray whale with a distinctive series of knuckles along the back. Humpbacks and other whales have dorsal fins.

If you see the gray whale back in the Locks - or any whale entangled or stranded onshore - please call the NOAA West Coast MMSN Hotline immediately at 866-767-6114, giving location and species information. Gray whales do strand somewhat frequently in our waters.

If a whale is along the shoreline of West Seattle, please call the Seal Sitters MMSN hotline at 206-905-SEAL (7325) and then contact Orca Network. This will help enable our first responders to obtain an i.d. photo if at all possible.

Spring marks the return of gray whales to Puget Sound. Before continuing their 10,000 mile-long migration from the sheltered breeding grounds of Mexico’s Baja California lagoons to their summer feeding grounds in Alaska, these gentle giants detour into our inland waters to forage.

Grays are baleen whales, who forage by scooping up and straining huge quantities of ocean bottom sediment (which contains invertebrates) through their comb-like filters. Along the shores of Whidbey, Hat and Camano islands are beds of ghost shrimp, a favorite food. At low tide, you can often see hollowed out areas of beach where the whales have been feeding. Sadly, a whale can also scoop up human trash that settles on the sandy bottom.

Each year, a number of gray whales take up temporary residency in north Puget Sound, sometimes wandering down into central and south Puget Sound. This spring offers a wonderful opportunity to get out on whale watch boat and observe them from a safe distance. It is imperative that their foraging behavior not be disrupted, so they have the energy to continue their monumental journey north. All marine mammals are protected by Federal law from harassment, the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

UPDATE 4/20/16
A dead gray whale was sighted on the 18th, floating off the waters of Vashon Island. Today, a team from Cascadia Research Collective necropsied the whale, a young male, who has been confirmed as the same gray seen in the Ballard Locks. Read Cascadia’s report here.

Tags: gray whale