The Pacific Tide: The Fight To Save Eastern Northern Pacific Gray Whales
- Orsolya Dunai
- Jul 14
- 14 min read
Updated: Jul 29
California’s Pacific coast is one of the most biodiverse and abundant ecosystems worldwide, teaming with almost 2000 species of microorganisms, plants, fish, marine mammals, turtles, invertebrates, and seabirds supported by a Mediterranean climate. Its famous offshore, underwater, and coastal rock formations date back to the Cretaceous period and help subsidize this special bionetwork, making the state’s ocean waters and sea life sacred and unique.
Unfortunately, California’s precious coastal ecosystem also faces massive threats in the vein of climate change/global warming, the devastation of kelp forests, ocean acidification, algal blooms, and habitat destruction; sounding the alarm for the time-sensitive need for human intervention, conservation management, and awareness.
The Pacific Tide series highlights monthly oceanic events occurring on the California coast and/or portrait important species who call the Pacific coastline waters home emphasizing the importance of conserving this critical ecosystem.
In this month’s installment of The Pacific Tide, we announce the desperate call to save Eastern Northern Pacific (ENP) gray whales off the coast of California experiencing the lowest population numbers since the 1970s while exploring the causalities for this population mortality, including climate change and California’s contribution: freight vessel noise and ship strikes.
We also highlight California’s efforts to save the whales with new laws and initiatives geared toward the decrease of vessel noise and lower ship speeds; and the use of technology and AI to create a safer Pacific Blue Corridor, hoping to promote an ENP gray whale population boost.
Save the Whales 2.0
'Nostalgia' is at a cultural boom in the 2020s with everything from food, fashion, music, television, and films turning back the clock, creating déja vu moments for the generation hitting middle age. However, history shouldn’t always be repeated and recycled. The 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s all saw movements to “Save the Whales!” highlighting the atrocities of whale hunting, overfishing and the rapid onset of climate change/global warming. Conservationists, advocates, and protestors held rallies, donned buttons, posted banners, sold whale-sound compact discs, and pleaded to the United States Congress; resulting in monumental laws and widespread protections to rehabilitatedeclining whale population numbers. Although some saw these movements as ‘hippie’ and ‘granola’; the fallout was profound. 2026, the year of nostalgia, is raising the alarm to dust off the protest buttons because it is time to save the whales… again.
The Eastern North Pacific gray whale (ENP) is the gentle giant calling the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Canada, North America, and Mexico home, often extolled for their ‘friendly’ disposition and habit of venturing in close proximity to shores and whale-spotting tourist boats. Measuring at 45-50 feet and tipping the scales at an average of 36-45 tons; ENP gray whales have inhabited the oceans for over 200,000 years, being the ultimate survivor in the ever-changing death game of planet Earth and its inhabitants. This hasn’t come easily, as ENP gray whales partake in the longest migration trek of all animals at over 10,000 mile’s feeding in the cold Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska before traveling down the coastline of Canada and most famously the Pacific Northwest and California in order to reach the tropical Mexican lagoons that serve as nurseries to ENP females birthing calves. The months from January to June experience a spring migration reversal, returning to the ice-cold Arctic waters.
There is more to ENP gray whales than just being the centerfold model to a tourist’s camera; as they are absolutely critical to oceanic ecosystems. ENP gray whales are predominantly bottom-feeders, rotating onto their sides and inhaling the seabed, dining on planktonic amphipods before exhaling the silt, acting as the plow farmers of the sea minus the fashionable overalls and John Deere tractors. This feeding cycle releases bottom nutrients that rise during ocean upwellings, feeding upper- water marine mammals and fish. Whale feces also contain key nutrients that are consumed by plankton and algae, which in themselves form the building blocks of the ocean by converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, ultimately making whales the biggest endorsers of biodiversity in the oceans.
The light on these usually resilient ocean ally kings is beginning to dim (again) with experts removing rose-colored glasses and becoming skeptical that ENP gray whales will survive even in the short term, “I don’t think we’re ever going to see an Arctic that can support 25,000 gray whales again, at least not in my lifetime”, Josh Stewart, an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute dejectedly confirmed. ENP gray whale populations are declining at rates that are impossible to adapt to, being at the lowest since the 1970s. Since 2016, ENP gray whales have declined by half from approximately 27,000 to 12,900 by current estimates, with most recent mother-calf pairs off the coast of California at a low-end dire count of 85, which, if it persists, unequivocally cannot sustain the species. 690 ENP gray whales were found dead off the Pacific coast between 2019-2023, with 2026 figures for ENP gray whale strandings already troubling scientists only midway through the year. 33 dead whales have washed off the Puget Sound, with an additional 13 in the San Francisco Bay by June, totaling 51 by early summer; making researchers fear that 2026 will be the worst year on record for ENP gray whale deaths.
What is causing this downshift in ENP gray whale populations sparking a 2020s save the whales movement? Two key factors prevail; both putting the guilt on mankind: (1) global warming/climate change and (2) freight vessel noise and ship strikes. Although ENP gray whales have survived climate disasters thus far; current conditions are declining far faster than the whales can adapt with the biggest losses occurring in the Arctic feeding waters where glaciers are melting at Olympic runner speeds, resulting in lesser amphipods to feed ENP gray whales. Without a proper diet, ENP gray whale females can’t produce enough blubber needed to migrate, give birth or to feed calves that require 50 gallons of milk a day during the 8 months of nursing after a 12-month pregnancy. ENP gray whales have amended to this climate change by restricting or eliminating births entirely being detrimental to the species and are often found emaciated and malnourished when stranded on shores. “We thought we were seeing a bit of rebound, but it was so short-lived,” Josh Calambokidis, a marine biologist studying gray whales, reported, “Rather than alternating between boom and bust, a more accurate description of the whales’ trajectory is ‘boom, bust, bust, bust’.
Climate change is a borderless, global issue with California not necessarily holding the reins; but the state is the primary leader in ENP gray whale ship strikes and vessel noise declining the populations…and this is a crown California is likely not proud to wear.
California: The Worst Traffic on Land and in the Sea
Navigating Californian streets means hurdling a cluster of multiple lanes, bumper-to-bumper traffic, horns blasting, music filling the air, traffic lights causing complication and cars zipping in-and-out with no respect for motorist laws. Imagine a truck nearing contact with your car but being unable to hear your passenger’s warning; or becoming utterly lost because the GPS directions blend into the noise pollution. Transfer this hectic disorder to the Pacific Blue Corridor: the ancient migratory route of the ENP gray whales off the California coast. ENP gray whales have traveled these once calm waters for several Millenia but now face modern-day traffic of cargo ships, tankers, and even yachts. California’s waters hold one of the busiest cargo vessel traffic routes and is the home to the world’s largest container port and center of US economical trade located in San Pedro near Los Angeles. Northern California also makes the list with the Port of Oakland in the San Francisco Bay earning the title of fourth busiest port. This means the Pacific waterways traveled by ENP gray whales is now congested with ship traffic and noise stress.
While migrating on the Pacific Blue Corridor, ENP gray whales rely on their sense of hearing other whales to circumnavigate distance and pinpoint their current location, receive warnings of threats, and evaluate other critical information akin to a whale traffic news report. ENP gray whales emit six low-frequency calls (between 100 Hz and 2000 Hz) to maintain communications with other whales, but when these are acoustically masked by ship vessel noise in the marinescape; whales cannot hear their calves, pods, or environment, resulting in elevated stress, directional distraction on the migratory route, and in worst cases: ship strikes.
ENP gray whales off the coast of California are struggling to coexist with the vessel noise but with unfavorable penalties to the species. Whales have been recorded vocalizing at higher frequencies virtually ‘shouting’ to be heard by other whales or often remaining silent as they ‘freeze’ documenting the vessels as threats. Fecal matter gathered from whales coming into close contact with ships and the freight noise traffic show elevated levels of cortisol: the stress hormone. Data congregated in the Pacific Blue Corridor found unhealthy high levels of fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGC) directly proportionate to the vessel traffic and marinescape noise at the time of collection.
Vessel noise and traffic also distract whale migrations creating an element of fear with ENP gray whales responding by discarding the usual corridor and becoming lost. This fear response has proven to cause metabolic changes and breathing irregularities comparable to a panic attack in a human.
Returning to climate change, the absence of abundant feeding in the Arctic has forced starving and vulnerable ENP gray whales to go off-course in a desperate search for a meal, swimming closer to the Californian shores or directly in the path of oncoming cargo vessels resulting in an alarming rise in ship strikes. By May 2026, 11 ENP gray whales were found dead in the San Francisco Bay with two being from ship strikes averaging a 40% strike rate echoing 2025 with nine out of 26 whales being ship fatalities. The Bay Area is especially high-risk for whales with a minimum of 18% mortality rate.
Environmental hearing loss resulting from California’s ship freight traffic is directly diminishing the ENP gray whale population signaling the call to save the whales. A whale’s sense of hearing assists in finding mates, migration orientation and avoiding predators. Marinescape noise is elevating stress hormones, deteriorating immune systems and overall health and ultimately: leading to the death of the species.
California Steps Up to Save the Whales Against Marinescape Noise and Vessel Strikes
California is the poster child state leading all things tech and promoting anything and everything ‘green’ in support of wildlife. It is no surprise that the Golden State would mesh the two and be on the leading edge of innovation and initiatives to help save the ENP gray whales.
The simplest and most logical solution to help save the whales is for cargo vessels to reduce speeds or even re-route during the migratory season in the Pacific Blue Corridor. Vessels dipping traveling speeds to 10 knots (only a 10% speed decline) can reduce ship strikes by 50% and cloak the marinescape noise by 38% which significantly allows whales to hear other whales and no longer have to call at higher frequencies. Reducing speeds benefits both sea and air as less fuel usage means lower CO2 emissions and fuel savings for freight companies. California has turned to the legal system to promote this idea; suing the current presidential administration for failing to adequately protect marine life in the Pacific shipping lanes. 2025 saw Governor Gavin Newsom passing Assembly Bill 14 which provides state governmental aid to programs working with vessel shipping freight companies to reduce speeds and created the Ocean Protection Council (OPC) to help save the whales. This bill was expanded in 2026 covering not only the entire California coast; but northwards to Oregon and south to the Mexico. Government officials have also raised the idea of shifting cargo shipping lanes away from the Pacific Blue Corridor but this was rejected by the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center as such a move would bring vessels close to the Navy’s largest missile testing site.
The headlining program promoting reduction of vessel speeds is California’s Blue Whales and Blue Skies: a state-funded, financial-incentive program encouraging the shipping lane slow-down to 10 knots or re-navigation. Blue Whales and Blue Skies accepts both freight vessel companies and auxiliary businesses using vessels for trade promising to only utilize participating freight vessel lines. Although voluntary (advocates are fighting to make Blue Whales and Blue Skies mandatory), by 2025, 76 companies clocked into the Blue Whales and Blue Skies program with 700 individual vessels following the new ‘speed limit’. In July 2026, the program has peaked at 60 participating shipping lanes and with increased vessel collaboration hitting 80%. 2026 also announced new partner ambassadors like California’s Santa Barbara Zoo and the Oakland Bay Port joining the Blue Whales and Blue Skies initiative.
Maersk, the primary shipping vessel freightliner in California’s waters, is a leading member of Blue Whales and Blue Skiesgoing above-and-beyond the program not only reducing speed but using digital route-planning tools to find new corridors that avoid whales. Maersk also donates any monetary compensation received from participating in the program back to Blue Whales and Blue Skies and the state of California. Crews on Maersk’s vessels contribute by reporting any whale sightings to conservation databases using the “Whale Alert” app strengthening California’s understanding of the whale migrations.
California’s residents are also encouraged to help save ENP gray whales with the “Whale Spotter” app available on iPhone and Android, where a once-in-a-lifetime whale encounter can feed data in real time to scientists and ship operators helping to save the whales versus just being a clout post on social media for ‘likes’.
California + AI = Saving the Whales
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a polarizing topic with arguments sizzling on both sides, showing support or being adamantly against its rapid rise. California is using AI for good and harnessing its technology to save the whales. San Franscisco, the home of techies and the highest whale ship strike morality numbers; is leading the helm with 2026’s pilot program, Whale Spotter which uses thermal infrared cameras to scan the San Francisco Bay capturing any water changes resultant of whale spouting, whale body temperatures or whale sightings; then signaling a horn heard by vessel captains up to two nautical miles (7 kilometers) warning them to decrease speeds or change course. AI analyzes this captured camera data, comparing it to 15 years’ worth of images and research, and distinguishes whales from any other marinescape occurrence. False negatives are eliminated within 30 seconds by scientists serving behind the cameras. These data sets are forwarded to the US Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Report and instantly posted on the Whale Safe platform used by vessel ship captains, mariners and ferry operators. Whale Spotter’s cameras run 24/7 through the most trepid weather conditions and are already monitoring on an Angel Island Coast Guard tower and a ferry that travels between San Francisco and Vallejo; with plans to expand cameras to the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. California’s Whale Spotter has garnered attention in the US Congress, with California Representative Sam Liccardo hoping policymakers create a “whale desk [that] will protect these magnificent creatures and help mariners avoid costly, harrowing collisions.”
Buoys gently floating in white-capped ocean waters is not anunusual sight; but there has been an upgrade to the old standard with new state-of-the-art acoustic buoys specifically for the Save the Whales movement. At the forefront of this new oceanic technological marvel is Whale Safe, a program created by the cooperative work by UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Texas A&M University at Galveston, University of Washington, and the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Whale Safe - which is already up-and-running in both the San Francisco Bay and Santa Barbara Channel - employs acoustic monitoring buoys that instantaneously capture whale sounds and calls, downloads this marinescape information to an AI-supported program that compares new data to previously collected sets and aligns the whale sounds to oceanic outliers such as changes in water temperatures or even water PH. Whale Safe is then able to create simulations that can predict the migrations and movements of ENP gray whales, forwarding this information to mariners using a ‘Whale Presence Rating’ with real-time alerts from changes in whale concentrations.
Whale Safe is still in its infancy, with some kinks to smooth only ‘hearing’ generalized whale calls; but depending on conditions, whale sex, etc.; one whale can make a variety of calls or a pod can make none at all. Plus, this detection doesn’t echolocate the exact location of the whale(s), making it unconfirmable if whales are indeed swimming in a vessel shipping lane. Whale Safe continues to work hand-in-hand with shipping companies in respect to their bottom line but also aims to save the whales.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also discharged a system of free-floating acoustic buoys that are more easily gathered and relocated up-and-down the coast of California to gather whale data in a vastly larger spatial coverage area at one time. These acoustic buoys drift for several weeks before being collected and data is distributed in a maritime traffic report to both vessel crews and ocean conservationists.
Shipping in California’s Pacific Blue Corridor is not slowing down and is expected to increase by 245% by 2050, which is an especially injurious outlook for the fate of the ENP gray whales. “Shipping is not going to disappear”, notes Daniel Zitterbart a chief scientist at Whale Spotter. “We need to have tech that allows us to use the ocean, but also allows the whales to go about their lives”. It is imperative that California continues to use its resources to make the Pacific waters safer for ENP gray whales and avoid oceanic roadkill. “Every day is a nail-biter…This new system will save lives”, David McCauley, a marine ecologist with UC Santa Barbara, adds. We must all work together to save the whales…again.
Directories/Credits
1: “Eastern North Pacific Gray Whales Continue Decline After Downturn During Unusual Mortality Event”, Written by Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Published on June 18, 2025 Updated on June 25, 2025 by NOAA Fisheries
2: “Gray Whale Strandings Up to 30 After Additional Whales Found Along Coast”, Written by Elizabeth Wiley. Published on June 17, 2026 by King5 Seattle News
3: “3 Months, 21 Dead Gray Whales: Why So Many Carcasses are Washing up on Pacific Shores”, Written by Evan Bush. Published on May 25, 2026 by NBC News
4: “What Gray Whales are Telling Us About Ecosystem Change in the Pacific Arctic”, Written by Joshua D Stewart, Jacqueline M. Grebmeier, M Tim Tinker, John Calambokidis and Sue E Moore. Published on November 11, 2025 by Oxford Academic in Ices Journal of Marine Science
5: “Whale Deaths on Track to Make 2026 Among Deadliest Years on West Coast”, Written by Miyoko Sakashita. Published on May 28, 2026 by the Center for Biological Diversity
6: “Squeak Up! I Can’t Hear You: Pilot Whales are Shouting to Hear Themselves Over Ship Noise”, Written by Vanessa Pirrota. Published on May 7, 2026 by The Conversation
7: “Artificially Increased Noise Has Profound Effect on Gray Whale Calling Behavior”, Written by Unknown Author. Published on November 2, 2016 by NOAA Fisheries.
8: “Effects of Vessel Traffic and Ocean Noise on Gray Whale Stress Hormones”, Written by Leila S. Lemos, Joseph H. Haxel, Amy Olsen, Jonathan D. Burnett, Angela Smith, Todd E. Chandler, Sharon L. Nieukirk, Shawn E. Larson, Kathleen E. Hunt & Leigh G. Torres. Published on November 3, 2022 by Scientific Reports
9: “Slowing Down for Whales: How California Is Making Its Busiest Shipping Lanes Safer”, Written by Unknown Author. Published on May 20, 2026 by the California Ocean Protection Council
10: “A New Whale Detection Network Launches in San Francisco Bay, Alerting Ships in Real Time”. Written by The Associated Press. Published on May 20, 2026 by NBC News
11: “Lawsuit Aims to Protect Whales in California from Deadly Ship Strikes”, Written by David Derrick. Published on October 23, 2025 by the Center for Biological Diversity
12: “Pilot Project in San Francisco Bay Aims to Help Ships Avoid Gray Whales”, Written by David Brown. Published on June 4, 2026 by Mongabay News
13: “Partnerships for Common Goals: Acoustic Buoy to Study Marine Mammals in the California Current”, Written by Shannon Rankin. Published on October 3, 2019 by NOAA
14: “New Tool Alerts Ships When Whales are Near. But Will They Slow Down?”, Written by Claudia Geib. Published on September 23, 2020 by Mongabay News
15: “One Simple Way Ships Can Protect Endangered Whales”, Written by Sharon Livermore. Published on July 3, 2024 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare
16: “Gentle and Strong – The Pacific Gray Whale”, Written by Samantha Wynns. Published on February 28, 2019 by the National Park Service
17: “AI-Powered Whale-Spotting Tech May Help Save San Francisco Bay’s Gray Whales”, Written by Carolyn Gramling. Published on May 19, 2026 by Science News
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