Wayward baby gray whale is spotted in O.C. harbor

Harbor patrol officials said they had spotted a small gray whale swimming Thursday in the harbor waters in Huntington Beach.

The whale, said to be only 15 feet long and most likely a calf, was spotted at mid-morning and then again just before 1 p.m. in Sunset Harbor.

The sighting comes two days after a gray whale calf said to be about 18 feet long was spotted swimming close to the docks in Marina del Rey. That whale vanished by Wednesday morning.

A boater sent out a radio report of the whale in Sunset Harbor around 10 a.m., and Orange County Harbor Patrol officials began patrolling the waters before finally making a sighting in the back portion of the harbor, said Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol Sgt. Steven Marble.

“It doesn’t appear to be distressed,” Marble said.

The whale in Marina Del Rey appeared to be distressed and was swimming in the opposite direction of the normal migration pattern, authorities said.

Peter Wallerstein of Marine Animal Rescue the whale migration had ended and that many of the whales being spotted now along the Southern California coast could be considered stragglers.

The gray whales make one of the longest of all mammalian migrations, stretching 10,000 to 14,000 miles per round trip, according to the American Cetacean Society.

Every year, gray whales travel between feeding grounds off Alaska to the warm waters along the Baja peninsula, where they breed.

Wallerstein said around this time the whales should be back at the feeding grounds, but said some whales are heading in the wrong direction.

“It’s odd that all these whales are around at this time,” he said. “Who knows what’s going on.”

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