More to See and Celebrate in This Year’s Whale Watch : Endangered species: The population gain of the Pacific gray whale is being hailed as a ‘conservation success story.’

Migrating Pacific gray whales are once again off the Orange County coast, slowly making their way southward toward Mexico’s Baja peninsula.

With their numbers once depleted by whalers to fewer than 2,500, the gray whale population now is estimated at 21,000, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed taking the docile animals off the endangered species list.

With more grays than ever making the 10,000-mile journey from Alaska to Baja California, chances of sightings are good, tour operators said.

“This is a conservation success story,” said Rusty White, director for the Nautical Heritage Society in Dana Point.

To help bring recognition to that effort, the city of Dana Point plans a whale festival from Feb. 21 through March 8. It will include daily whale-watching tours, sailing regattas and the unveiling of a robotic replica of an early ancestor of the whale, the now extinct basilosaurus, at the Orange County Marine Institute.

The proposal to delist the gray whales (also known as downlisting) was made in November. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is now finishing gathering comment from the public and government agencies, said James H. Lecky, chief for the Protected Species Division with the fisheries service at Terminal Island.

“In November, we started a final, 60-day comment period. We will weigh those comments and then make a final decision,” Lecky said. The decision may be made by March.

Hunting or harassing gray whales would continue to be illegal, but developers no longer would have to seek special permits for commercial activities, such as oil drilling, near the whales’ West Coast habitat.

Lecky said the whales remain protected by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which precludes the commercial use of any marine mammal.

But gray whales continue to be hunted by man. The fisheries service allows about five gray whales to be taken each year by native Alaskan hunters. In addition, another 175 gray whales are killed by Russian Siberian natives for their use.

Decimation of the big grays, which can reach 50 feet in length, began as early as the late 1800s when they were hunted by Yankee whalers.

Naturalists estimate that there were 30,000 California gray whales, as they were then called, in the northern Pacific before 1846. Since they migrated close to the shoreline, the whale-hunting business proved profitable. Whale blubber was melted down for lamp oil and whale flesh was ground up for dog food. Whalebone, which hangs in horny, elastic sheets from the jaws of baleen whales such as the gray, was carved into buggy whips, corset stays and combs.

Whaling records show that from 1846 to 1874, about 8,100 gray whales were taken. The slaughter continued until the 1930s, when the population dipped to several dozen. It wasn’t until 1947 that an international ban on commercial hunting was imposed.

As for the proposed delisting, environmentalists have supported the idea but worry that some exploitation of the mammals may occur.

“Our position is we’re not opposed to downlisting as long as the National Marine Fisheries Service is serious about maintaining protection of the species under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. That means the 100-yard limit restriction on whale watching will be enforced,” said Burr Heneman, director of the Center for Marine Conservation in San Francisco.

Heneman said some environmental groups have voiced concern about offshore oil development and the effects of sonic testing for oil on the health and migration of the gray whales. Also, net fisheries have killed gray whales that become entangled.

Because the large, spectacular animals swim close to the shoreline, they have spawned what has become a $35-million-a-year whale-watching industry. It is estimated that more than 200 California-based tour boats do steady business each whale-watching season, which traditionally runs from December to April.

Whale watching has become so popular that several businesses now take whale watchers aboard helicopters and light planes.

“We ask that you must stay 100 yards away if you’re on a boat, and at least 1,000 feet above a gray whale if you’re in an aircraft,” Lecky said.

One of the biggest environmental groups, the American Cetacean Society, also coordinates whale-watching tours that take spectators from San Diego to the gray whale’s breeding lagoons in Mexico.

The Cetacean Society recommended delisting the gray whale, calling the saving of the gray whale one of nature’s major “success stories,” said Tia Collins, a Cetacean Society volunteer.

Dennis L. Kelly, a marine biologist at Orange Coast College well known for his studies of bottlenose dolphins found along the Orange County coast, agreed.

“I support the idea of delisting them with the contingent that they (federal officials) spend the money they would have spent on studying gray whales on other, more endangered species. . . . When you have a success story like the grays, you’ve got to move on to other species that need our help more.”

Winter Odyssey of Gray Whales

Pacific gray whales migrate south each winter along the Pacific Coast to mate and give birth in warmer waters off Mexico’s Baja California. Whales live on stored blubber until their return to summer feeding grounds.

Key destinations are Scammon’s and San Ignacio lagoons, and Magdalena Bay, although some do venture into the Gulf of California. Lagoon-hopping is common.

In protected lagoon waters, pregnant grays bear 2,000-pound, 12-foot-long calves. The calves consume up to 50 gallons daily of mother’s milk, which is 40% fat. In two months, calves will double in weight and be ready for the long journey north.

Gray whales were hunted to near extinction but in 1947 they came under international protection. They have since grown in number to about 21,000.

Gray whales weigh 40 to 45 tons, reach lengths of 50 feet and live up to 60 years.

Light blotches on skin are parasitic shellfish called barnacles, or scars.

Whales use baleen to filter food from the ocean floor. Baleen consists of thin plates that hang from the upper jaw. It is made of the same material as human fingernails.

Source: U.S. National Marine Fisheries Agency; The Gray Whale; Whales; The World of the California Gray Whale