Reports from Observation Post #8
Point Piedras Blancas, California, United States
News from the 2010 Season

Biologist Wayne Perryman started the count on March 29, 2010. Last season's (2009) final count of northbound gray whale calves was just 86, the lowest ever taken in the years since this census began. What will 2010 bring?

May 2010

May 10, 2010
We only had 5 c/c pairs last week, bringing our total to 66, the second-lowest count by this date in the 17-year time series. (Spring 2001 was lower, and we are still ahead of the count by this date compared to the 2001 survey.)

Last year, ice was slow to recede in the April-June period and we have consistently found that when ice is slow to melt, we see fewer calves the following spring. So why is ice distribution in the spring important to or related to calf production in Gray Whales? First you must remember that the newly pregnant female gray whales are the first segment of this population to go back north to fatten up for next year's migration. My hypothesis is that if these pregnant females can't get to prime feeding grounds because ice is in the way, then the odds that their pregnancies will be carried to term are reduced. That would mean fewer calves the following spring.

Here is the really bad news: Arctic ice in March of 2010 was the most extensive ever recorded, and the melt is already about a month behind schedule. [What effect will this ice barrier have on the number of calves that will be counted during next spring's journey north?]

So this summer I will go through all the data sheets, find the little inconsistencies in the data set, and then turn the 12 hour/day counts into estimates of calf numbers for the total 2010 survey.

May 5, 2010
We had 13 c/c pairs sighted last week, bringing our total to 61 northbound calves. This is a very low total for this late in the season and having seen to data on the timing of the ice melt in the Arctic for last season I am not surprised. Maybe we will get a late pulse?

April 2010

April 26, 2010
We had 21 cow/calf pairs last week, bringing our total for the year to 48. That is pretty low for this time of year. We lost one full day to gale force winds and we are hoping that the number of calves passing will pick up this week.

April 14, 2010
The second week of the northbound calf survey from the Piedras Blancas Light Station resulted in the sightings of 9 calves in 60 hrs of effort. This brings our total northbound calves to 13 for the season. So far things are tracking along at an average pace.

April 4, 2010
For the first week of the survey we had 4 c/c pairs and 73 adults and juveniles. That is pretty much average for this time of year.

March 2010

March 29, 2010
We are up and running again at Piedras Blancas Light Station. We saw 12 adults and 3 juveniles today, our first day, in about 10 hours of watch effort. Fog closed us out around 5 pm today. Hoping to get a good day in tomorrow before rain moves in on Wednesday.

I have heard the same stories about lagoon counts being low. On one hand, I am not surprised given the amount of ice we saw in May of last year. Also El Nino years seem to be years in which lagoon use is down. Fours years of very low calf counts is not good for population growth, but we are watching a population that is dealing with its environment and we have had some wild habitat swings over the past thousands of years and we still have gray whales. They are remarkably adaptive animals.

1870s Lighthouse at Pt. Piedras Blancas, California