Gray whales spouting off out of season

Spouts like these have been common sights since Sunday. File photo

And, if you’re lucky, you might have seen a glistening back or a tail.

What are most likely gray whales have been hanging out just offshore of Crescent City. Why they are here this time of year is not clear.

“They come there regularly,” said Dawn Goley, a professor of zoology and director of the Marine Mammals Education and Research Program at Humboldt State Uni­versity. “We’re not sure of the purpose.”

Gray whales’ lives are split into “two really different parts of their lives,” Goley said: feeding during the summer months and then breeding and giving birth in the winter.

The whales haven’t yet started their migration from Alaska to the lagoons of Baja to give birth, so they are  between those two phases.

Usually gray whales start south in December, said Alan Justice, the local site captain for Whale Watching Spoken Here. They then come back as early as March. But along the way south or back north, they “stop and hang out.”

According to local lore, there’s a pod of gray whales living nearby year-round, but Goley said there is no evidence that supports that theory.

The Marine Mammals Education and Research Pro­gram has been studying whales off Del Norte County shores for 10 years, she said.

Justice also doubts that there is a “local pod.”

“It’s common to see them year-round, but it’s not necessarily the same ones,” he said.

Gray whales don’t typically gather in large groups, Goley said, they’re solitary creatures. But there could be several together if there’s a lot to feed on in one area, she added.

While the gray whale is the most common in this part of the Pacific Ocean, humpbacks, blue whales and orcas have also been spotted around here.

Whale Watching Spoken Here is a program of the Oregon parks and Recreation Department that places volunteers along the Oregon and Crescent City coast to talk about whale watching.

Volunteers will be in position this year from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 at the Brother Jonathan Vista Point.

However, Justice said it’s becoming clear that “the whales aren’t going to wait for us.”