Oregon Whale Watchers Left High and Dry

Missing: about 24,000 gray whales.

They were supposed to have shown up by now along the Oregon coast on their annual migration from the Bering Sea to their calving lagoons on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. But as of this week, not one has been sighted.

“In the past, the whales have begun to show up around the first week of December, certainly by the 10th,” said Bruce Mate, an Oregon State University professor and marine mammal specialist. “We’ve never seen a migration this late.”

For the first time since 1981, OSU researchers are planning to do an actual head count as the whales pass near the shore. From a perch in the tower of the Yaquina Head lighthouse, OSU search assistant Amy Poff has been watching for them since late November.

Mate’s team even flew up and down the coast in search of the whales but found none. He is getting calls from scientists in other Pacific states reporting the same phenomenon.

Despite decades of studying the whales, Mate says he cannot explain the absence of the mammals.

“We had El Nino last year, but we don’t know if that affected these animals,” Mate said.

The late migration could affect pregnant whales, which normally give birth in the warm, calm Baja lagoons. It is unknown whether calf survival would be different in the open sea, Mate said.