Six Blue whales sighted off Washington State coast

14/12/2011 17:23:40 Courtesy of Cascadia Research
December 2011. On 8 December 2011, six blue whales were sighted feeding off the Washington coast intermixed with Humpback and Fin whales. Blue whales are the largest animal that has ever lived and still endangered due to historic whaling.

This is the most blue whales that have been documented off Washington and only the third confirmed sighting of Blue whales there in the last 50 years. One of the previous sightings was also in winter. The other sightings, both in 2009, were of single animals.

Blue whales are more commonly seen off California in summer and autumn. The lack of sightings off Washington could in part be because of the lack of survey effort in winter months off the Washington coast, a period where poor weather makes surveys difficult.

Winter surveys
The latest sightings were part of a new research effort conducted by Cascadia Research in collaboration with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to learn more about the occurrence of endangered whales off Washington and Oregon. This three-year effort will include surveys, photographic identification, and satellite tagging to learn more about the large whales occurring in this region.

Photographic ID
The most recent sightings came about as a result of one of these surveys. A concentration of whales, thought to be mostly Humpback and Fin whales, had been spotted on the morning of 8 December by the WDFW vessel Corliss when it surveyed through an area about 25 miles off Westport. A smaller inflatable boat operated by Cascadia researchers Greg Schorr and John Calambokidis followed-up these sightings later that morning. They identified and photographed the whales including confirming the presence of at least six different Blue whales. These will be photographically compared to Cascadia's catalogue of over 2,000 identified Blue whales to search for previous sightings of these individuals.