Once in a blue moon. That’s one way to describe how rare the event was. Whale watchers in Monterey Bay had a chance to see not one, not two, not three, but 28 blue whales frolicking in the waters of the bay, along with a pod of humpback whales. It’s a sight that’s seldom seen. At 100 feet in length, blue whales are not only the largest animal that ever lived. They are also one of the rarest, with only 10,000 surviving across the planet today compared to over half a million just a few decades ago. Blue whale hunting was only banned by the International Whaling Commission in the 1960s, and halted by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. By then, the population in the Southern Ocean had been reduced to just 0.15 percent of its initial numbers.
The largest concentration of blue whales today is in the North Pacific, with about 2,200 living mainly along the California coast.
What brought them here? Krill, the tiny crustaceans that make up the diet of the blue whales. The krill are so thick in the waters these days that the whales saw this as an ideal hunting ground. After all, the whales eat up to 40 million krill a day. That comes to a total of just under 4 tons of krill per whale.
There is no telling how long the krill stock will be sufficient for the whales to feed here before they head off to other hunting grounds. So to get a chance to see the largest—and one of the rarest—animals alive in the wild today, head out to Monterey Bay. It’s a once in a lifetime experience. Read more at KSBW.
