WEBVTT - The Gray Whale, Part 1 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.320 name is Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick. This episode of 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.160 Stuff to Blow Your Mind, and I suppose the next 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.080 one as well will be dealing with gray whales. This 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.040 is a topic that I was inspired to cover because 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.080 my family was fortunate enough to get to go on 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.080 a trip to Mexico, to the Mexican state of Baja California, 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:37.479 sir to one of the breeding lagoons that the gray 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:43.479 whales migrate too every year. Specifically, we went to Ojo 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.279 Delia Bray Lagoon. That means I of the hair due 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.479 to the way it's it's shaped. And yeah, I got 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:55.560 to see these magnificent animals close up, got to observe 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:57.840 them for a couple of days. It was. It was 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:03.520 absolutely fantastic and certainly ignited my curiosity about these creatures. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.240 I didn't get to see your photos because I'm not 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.160 on the gram, but Rachel was raving about them to me. Yeah, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.560 I'll once this episode comes out off to share some 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.520 maybe in the discussion module the Facebook group or our 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.399 discord for the show, and if you don't have access 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.360 to those. Just email us and and well we'll hook 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.000 you up. But yeah, a lot. I got some great footage, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.720 my wife got some great footage, and and more than anything, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.280 we just got to take in this amazing location, this 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:36.240 amazing landscape, and these amazing animals. So this lagoon is 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.560 one of their calving grounds and you were out in 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.200 boats getting to observe them right up close right. Yeah, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.920 this um, this is one of several different lagoons where 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.520 where where this particular population goes to. When we were 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.040 visiting there, there were hundreds of whales present in this lagoon. 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:58.480 It's a pretty vast lagoon. Um, it's surrounded on all 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.640 sides with this kind of desolate and haunting landscape that's 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.320 full of like salt, sand and bramble. I mean, it's there. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.560 There are organisms they're either coyotes around and and other creatures, 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.000 but it's um, it's it's a unique landscape. Like just 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:17.640 flying into Guerrera Negro, the nearest town, was was really 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:22.919 breathtaking just because the landscape is so beautiful. But the 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:24.960 first morning we went out on these boats, they were 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.880 also these intense photam organa mirages on the horizon that 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.320 really added to the surreal feel of the place. What 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.799 were they like images out they look like mountains or 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.359 they were the surrounding um mountain, like some of the 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.680 peaks that were visible on the and also some of 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.560 the dunes, so like dunes and peaks. So yeah, it 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.959 was and it looked like floating islands on the horizon. Wow. 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.000 And then of course closer in you have all of 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:56.440 these breaching whales and spy hopping whales and it's it's amazing. Now. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.360 I do want to stress that in this particular situation, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.240 only a few boats were permitted on the water at 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.400 a time. There was no chasing of the whales. There 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.520 was no feeding of the whales. Um they don't eat 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.600 while they are there, and we'll get into the reasons 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.000 for this as we move through these episodes. But but 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:16.880 there's no need to chase, and there's no need to 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.200 it to try and bait them in, because they're very curious. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.720 They come up to the boats, they inspect the boats, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.160 and sometimes they're obviously scraping their skin against the holes 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.320 of the boats to perhaps to relieve themselves with some 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.679 of the parasites that they have, the exoparasites and we'll 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.040 discuss that as well in probably in well in this episode. Actually, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.280 other times, though they're not scraping against the boats. Sometimes 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.280 they're just kind of pushing them around a little bit, 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.000 like playing with them, I guess, to try and figure 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.480 out what their mind might be. Other times they're they're 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:55.280 just kind of breaching a little bit. They're spy hopping. Um, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.720 they and they seem to have some sort of interest 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.600 in what's going on in the boats or with the 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.560 boats humans will reach out and touch them, and it 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.720 seems like the whales like this on some level. Um, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:12.200 it's uh, it's it's a very very very strange situation, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.200 Like it feels kind of like certainly there's a sense 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.320 of curiosity on both sides, but there's also this, you know, 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.080 if you want to get spiritual about it, there's almost 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.480 this feeling of communion. So sometimes they'll kind of bring 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.440 part of their body out of the water or breach. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.760 But also you said spy hopping is that when they 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.200 raise their eyes above the water level to see what's 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:34.080 above the surface. Well, in other species, such as the 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.600 orca um, there's there's definitely more of an eye coming 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.000 above the water. With the with the gray whales, they're 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.480 not even necessarily getting their eyes above water, so it's, uh, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.799 you know, I think it's there. There's some differing takes 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.600 on why exactly they're doing this, but they'll, yeah, they'll 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.480 kind of spy hoop next to the boat, and they're 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.960 spy hopping out further away from the boats as well, 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.680 and um and then yea, sometimes they're rolling around in 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.680 the water and kind of and you'll even like look 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.560 into their eye that sometimes they are looking up through 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.119 the water at you, and that's one of those moments 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.679 where you're just you know, you're you're you're thinking about 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.000 like what are they seeing? What are they possibly thinking 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:13.600 as they look up at us? What do they think 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.720 we are? And then you also look at this whale 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.760 and you just, man, I was just thinking, like they've 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.279 they've seen things I can't even imagine, you know, And 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.320 this this particular whale is going to see things just 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.640 in the months ahead that I can scarcely imagine. So 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.400 I'm very envious of this experience. And uh, and I 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.919 would love to see gray whales up close one day too, 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.520 But I have seen plenty of video footage and at 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:43.360 least from what I've seen several things stand out. One 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.120 that they kind of I don't know if this makes 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.960 any sense, but they look more like rocks than any 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.720 other type of whale I can think of having seen, 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.000 and that may be aided by the many barnacles attached 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.200 to the outside of them, which, as we'll talk about 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.200 later on, very characteristic of the species of whale, having 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.479 a lot of barnacle loading on the outside. But in 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.400 looking at them, they can look very much like a 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:12.040 large gray boulder covered in lichen, almost where the barnacles 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.080 are kind of like the lichen patches, or at least 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.880 it seemed that way to me. M And then the 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:22.800 other thing being that their nostrils look very uh more 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.520 typically mammalian rather than the blow a hole that you 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.240 would see on the back of a lot of whales, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.920 where you might perceive at least as a single blowhole. Uh. 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.080 The gray whale nostrils I recall seeing are very distinctly 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.239 separate nostrils that kind of flare more like a dog's 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.400 nostrils might. Oh yeah, yeah, this this is not your 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.960 your cartoon whale. You have those those very nostril like 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.800 blow holes on top of the head, and you if 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:49.640 you're if you're out on one of these lagoons, you 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.040 see see that a lot. In fact, a lot of 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.800 people end up getting spre You're constantly misted by the 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.320 spray from them, even if they're not super close to 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.960 the boats, just because you know they're they're just kind 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.480 and up they're they're blowing that blow hole. There's this 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.320 mist in the air of water and also I guess 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.760 probably some some whale snut in there as well. But 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:10.920 they do have to your point, they do have this 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.800 kind of rocky appearance. Part of it's the barnacle load, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.760 but also that their their their skin is very modeled 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:22.320 and um and scarred, and it could look like it 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.480 is it is stone um. When if you do touch it, 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.920 I thought that it felt more or less like a 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.400 big eggplant. That's the kind of feeling I've had from it, 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.560 Like there's a little like there's a softness to it, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.640 but it is also you know, it's like a that's 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.560 kind of wet suit feeling as well. Oh, another thing 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.680 about their skin is I and will come back to this, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.280 but I was surprised by their whiskers. We've talked on 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.000 the show before about the evolution of whales and the 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.679 loss of body hair. So I wasn't prepared for the whiskers. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.280 Somehow I missed this in leading up to this whale experience. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.440 But they have quite a few whiskers. Um the other 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.600 thing that I was surprised about, because I'm some level, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.800 I was prepared for this gentleness, So I was prepared 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.000 for this curiosity. I knew what I was getting into 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.119 with that. But but also you would you would see 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.800 them moving underneath the water. And these are big animals. 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.320 They're we're talking uh, fourteen point nine meters or forty 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.360 nine feet in length, weights of up to forty one 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:26.680 tons or so. So these are like school bus sized organisms, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.680 and they're they're often very curious and gentle next to 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.320 the boat, but they can they can move with such 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.560 speed and strength, and you see that occasionally, especially when 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.120 they're engaging and mating behavior further away from the boats, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.280 they'll they'll surge underneath the water, and you're reminded just 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:50.440 how how powerful and how potentially um destructive these creatures 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.200 are if they had have they had reason to be 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.800 destructive towards you. You know, it's funny. This reminds me 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:00.120 of all these passages in Moby Dick describing whales. We 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.920 know now from plenty of examples like this, just like 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.800 as a matter of habit do not seem to attack 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.120 humans or do anything very aggressive, at least not most 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.839 of the time. But described in these older documents with 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.559 absolute horror, just like these whales are monsters. They are killers. 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.839 They will crush you, they will swallow you whole. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.400 and in fact I ran across this wonderful description. This 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.560 is from a paper in The American Naturalist from eighteen 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.920 eighty eight by J. D. Katon, titled the California gray Whale. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.440 The author writes, quote, of all the known species of whales, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:44.600 this is the most cunning, courageous, and vicious. So terrible 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.200 is it that, with the old implements of harpoon and lance, 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.600 but few whalemen would court an encounter with it, and 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.800 it early received the name of the devil fish. I 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.840 have no account that it ever maliciously attacked an unoffending object, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.760 Yet when it found it self pursued where escape was difficult, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.360 even before it was struck, it has been known to 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.400 turn upon pursuers and dash a boat to fragments with 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.680 a single blow. Of its powerful flukes, and so has 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.520 many a life been lost? Okay, well, at least this 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.080 source acknowledges that this kind of behavior would be like 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.760 in response to extreme distress, like when the whale is 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.280 being attacked. Yeah. Yeah, he is acknowledging that like this, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:30.960 this is aggression that's coming out of obvious whaling scenarios. Yeah. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.440 And you know you the sad fact is, and especially 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.559 this in the show before, you can't you can't remove 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.960 whaling from our understanding of these creatures. I mean that 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:48.400 the history is intertwined there with our understanding of the organism, 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.760 and so we have various things where the name comes 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.760 from whaler observations, like, for instance, whale lice, which will 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.199 discuss they're not actually lice, but whalers compare them to lice, 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.680 and that's where the name comes from. I do believe 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.640 gray whales specifically are thought to have once been much 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.880 more abundant, right, but that whaling in particular reduced their 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:14.560 populations to present levels where there's a sustainable number of 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.520 gray whales in the population on the western coast of 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.959 the American continent, but the population that lives on the 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.200 other side of the Pacific on the eastern coast of 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.320 the Asian Mainland is much more reduced, but in both 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.320 cases reduced by whaling. Yeah, and then there was once 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.720 a North Atlantic gray whale population. These were thought to 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.960 have fed around Newfoundland, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Iceland, 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:44.440 and Europe's North North Sea and for their winter breeding 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.560 lagoons or refuges. It's thought that they might have visited 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.000 the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas here in the States, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.840 as well as uncertain spots along the coast of Spain, Portugal, 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.240 and Morocco. But this population was essentially extinct by the 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.920 late seventeen and early eighteenth centuries do at least in 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:08.400 part to whaling. Interestingly enough, there have been proposals to 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.480 try and introduce reintroduce the North Pacific gray whale into 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.360 this region to restore the population. And I've also seen 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.600 speculations about what might occur in the future due to 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:25.000 climate change, that as we have less sea ice, it 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.720 might enable the gray whales on their own to recolonize 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.800 this part of the ocean. I guess it would be 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.559 very difficult and expensive to try to force a recolonization 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.320 by human intervention, Yeah, because I mean nothing else. We're 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.000 talking about enormous creatures and how are you going to 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.080 get them there? I didn't, I didn't look super hard 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.040 at the proposals. They may have a very straightforward solution 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:51.760 to this. I'm not sure if they would be airlifting 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.560 them or shipping them across land or exactly what the 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.559 scenario is, but it has not become an actionable thing 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.920 at least yet. Well, let's talk a little bit more 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.760 about the physical characteristics of the gray whale here. Because 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.439 I guess we are um an audio program. You can 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.559 certainly look up lots of great images and footage and illustrations. Uh. 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.600 One of the books that was one of my my 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.440 prime sources here as a book by Mark Carwardine, The 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.319 Handbook of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises of the World. Highly 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.720 recommend this book for anyone out there who's into whales, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.000 dolphins and porpoises. Fabulous illustrations and some great photographs and 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.840 just lots of wonderful information, uh that you know, can 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.720 aid you just sort of in general general interest in 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.040 these organisms or if you're into citing them and has 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.640 like you know, how to how to pick out these 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:47.480 various creatures, by their markings, by their their spouts, by 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.640 their flukes, that sort of thing. So that's going to 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.040 be one of the books I'm going to keep referring 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:52.920 back to, for sure. But getting back to what we 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.360 were talking about earlier. Yes, these are these are whales. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.400 These are large creatures, large whales. By some rankings, I 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.119 think they're only the eighth largest whale species. But considering 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.480 that number one, the blue whale, is the largest animal 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.880 that's ever lived, there's not really no shame in coming 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.160 at a number eight. Gray whale can reach forty nine 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.040 feet in length. That's the fourteen point nine meters way, 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.400 about forty tons. The females are larger than the males, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:22.240 and even the newborns are approximately fourteen to sixteen feet long. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.880 It's roughly four point two to four point eight meters 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.720 in wigh, around two thousand pounds or around nine hundred 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.800 and seven kilograms, So we're talking about big creatures here. 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.560 Cannot stress that enough, And I guess it's helpful that 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.560 the newborn calves are already big because it's when a 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.200 whale is young that it's most susceptible to predators like 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:45.680 the predation on adult gray whales, from what I understand, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:50.600 is pretty rare, whereas attempts by animals such as orcas 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.800 to prey on the calves is pretty common. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:59.200 because the healthy adult whale is a healthy adult gray 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.440 whale is a formidable opponent unless conditions are just right. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.160 And then, of course, uh, the the young are going 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:18.880 to be the primary focal point of predators. Okay, so 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.720 we've established they're big, we should also come back to 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.840 the fact that, yes, they are more or less gray 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.880 in color, often look like just a big old slab 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:34.000 of granite, kind of like an obelisk in the water. Yes. Now, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.320 one initial question that came up for me, of course, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.640 especially as we were dealing in our notes here, is 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:42.760 it gray g R E y or is it g 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.600 r A y um. I generally assume those spellings are interchangeable. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.160 It's like American English or British English. That's how yeah, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.160 ye read it. Yeah, and that's one of the main distinctions. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.560 Um Mark Carterwine in his book stresses that that either 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.280 is correct. You know, obviously gry is more common in 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.640 British English and gray is more common in American English. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.760 And generally we're referring to what has perceived to be 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.320 the color of the creature, though much of its gray 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.600 appearance is due to those accumulated barnacles, skin lesions scarring 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.720 their actual skin, though is still often described as light 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.640 to dark gray, or maybe a gray brown. However, it's 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.560 also acceptable to consider that we dubbed them gray whales 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.080 in reference to British zoologist John Edward Gray Gray, who 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.200 lived eighteen hundred through eighteen seventy five, who placed the 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.440 whale in its own genus in eighteen sixty four. On 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.640 top of that, its scientific name is as Richtius robustus, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.640 referring to nineteenth century Danish zoologist Frederick Estricht who lived 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.360 seventeen ninety eight through eighteen sixty three. So it could 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.480 have been the Eshricht whale. We we're glad that it's 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.040 the gray whale. Yeah, yeah, rolls off the tongue for 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.000 us at any rate, a little, a little easier. It's 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.160 been known by other names, of course, the gray back, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.520 the muscle digger, the mud digger, the scrag whale, ripsack, hardhead, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.840 and of course by American whalers the devil fish. That 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:10.760 was the one referenced in that they quote from the 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.560 article in the American Naturalists from the nineteenth century. Correct. Yes, 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.920 now there are no recognized forms or subspecies, though there 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.960 are two possible sub populations according to Carwadine, So we 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.160 have the eastern North Pacific and the western North Pacific 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.840 gray whale. But there also seems to be some cross 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:35.120 breeding between these two populations in the Mexican lagoons. Now 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:36.840 again you can put all of your sort of cartoon 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:43.000 whale appearances to the side, because the reality is somewhat different, 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.240 not only with the blowholes, but for starters, we should 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.080 point out that this is a baleen whale, not a 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.040 toothed whale. Baleen whales were once toothed whales earlier on 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.679 in their evolution, and we do have fossil evidence of 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.080 whales with both teeth and baleen, but they have adapted. 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.560 The gray whales have adapted to thrive as pure filter feeders. 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.919 So the baleen is a bristly material that lives inside 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.400 the whale's mouth which they use to filter feed by. Well, 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.480 there are various different ways the different species do it, 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.320 but by by forcing water through these sort of sieves. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:20.520 Natural biological sieves the billing hares which capture the plankton 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.600 or the krill, or the small bits of organic matter 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.119 that the whales live on. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:31.639 these these keratin baleen plates. And this is something I 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.840 hadn't given a lot of thought to before. But there 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.159 are different strategies to use with your baling. There are 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.760 two main strategies. Two of the main strategies anywhere, gulping 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.800 and straining, both carried out near the water surface by 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:49.200 different species of whales. Baleen whales, like right whales, will 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.480 slim swim through clouds of krill, open mouth, skimming them 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.560 from the water. Meanwhile, fin whales gulp up water full 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.440 of fish and or krill and then push the water 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.560 out as if through a sieve. But the gray whales 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.240 are different. They're the only modern baleen whale that dives 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.960 down deep, and I mean this is deep relative to 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.280 the waters they inhabit. These are not deep water whales. 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.840 They're not like sperm whales. They tend to stick to 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.960 coastal regions and the continental shelf, but they'll go down 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.280 deep for these regions and they'll feed as bottom feeders. 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.480 They'll turn on one side, and interestingly they are there 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.880 is like a right handedness to the gray whales. Most 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.119 whales seem to favor their right side, but some do 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:36.560 left instead, and they'll vacuum the water up, vacuum up water, mud, sand, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.439 and most importantly various organisms there in the muck. And 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.879 then they'll use their tongue to push out the mud, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.240 sand and water, but retain all these little organisms and 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:52.439 things they can digest in their billing. Yeah, and it's interesting, 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.440 apparently you can tell which side a particular gray whale 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.440 favors because the side it favors is generally more scraped 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.000 up and deep barnacled, because that's the side that goes 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.959 down in plows into the ocean floor. And also their 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:11.159 baleen plates are shorter than in other extent whales. So 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.439 these other baleen whales that use different feeding techniques, I 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.200 think they tend to have longer balin for straining out 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.719 the things that they need to eat. Now, as for 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.280 what they're eating out of the muck, Carveting points out 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.720 that a good eighty species of fish and invertebrates have 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.159 been identified as gray whale prey. However, most of the 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:37.000 prey that they consume consists of benthic and planktonic organisms. 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.479 Planktonic meaning, of course, plankton and benthic organisms being various 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.080 isopods that live abundantly in the sand. Apparently benthic amphipods 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.040 make up a good ninety percent of their diet. But 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.920 they're they're reasonably opportunistic and may also be shifting their 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.960 foraging habits in Arctic waters due to climate change. So basically, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:00.760 my understanding based on the they're reading here, is like 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.240 they're they're going down to the mud and the muck 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.320 and the sand to get most of their food, but 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.199 if they happen to encounter some sort of plankton on 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.280 the way up, you know they're gonna breathe it in. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:12.879 They're gonna they're gonna go ahead and take that in 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.520 as well. They're typically diving down thirty to sixty meters, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:18.080 but they may go up to one hundred and twenty 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.639 or even one hundred and seventy, and again, opportunistic feeding 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.040 may happen at any depth, but the seabed is their 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.320 main target now. The summer is their prime feeding period, 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.400 and of course they're large whales. They're eating large meals. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.480 They'll eat anywhere from like one to one point three 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.639 tons of the stuff per day, and the remainder of 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.439 the year entails a lot of fasting, including their migrations 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.479 to and from these calving and mating lagoons. Okay, so 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.959 they typically are going to be stocking up on food, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.480 they're eating, they're they're banging their heads into the sediment 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.679 up in the Arctic waters, and then they migrate down 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:02.760 south for calving and rearing young. Yeah. Yeah, and um, yeah, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:04.600 so you might think of them as just this kind 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:09.520 of enormous freight train of a creature that sucks up 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.560 mud and anything in the mud in the sand from 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.920 you know, from the waters that they inhabit and just 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:19.639 eat all summer long, Yeah, and then go go south 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.119 for the winter. Kind of the catfish of whales. Yeah, 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.640 they are. I thought about this as well. Yeah, they're 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:27.920 kind of because the catfish for the bottom feeders, I 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:31.159 grew up around and grew up here in about and 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:33.360 so yeah, they're they're kind of using the catfish strategy, 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:35.639 but on an epic scale. But don't try to go 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:38.919 noodling for gray whales. No, No, that doesn't sound like 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.040 a good idea now once a moll note, I think 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:43.800 I did read that there are some accepts. There seems 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:45.480 to be some evidence that there are some whales that 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.320 stay north for an extended period of time, but in 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.399 general we see this migration occurring. Other important physical notes, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.040 just to describe them, they have slender and small heads 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.040 even in relation to their body size, certainly when you 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:02.439 compare them to amously big headed whales like the sperm whale, 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.200 a toothed whale. They have a stocky body with a 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.359 hump two thirds of the way down their back, along 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:11.440