Sounding the Alarm for North Pacific Grey Whales

The following is a resource on the plight of Grey Whales in the North Pacific. It will be updated when there are developments.

Summary

The majority of Grey Whales found in the North Pacific belong to the “Northern Pacific Migratory” population, as defined by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC, 2017). These Grey Whales breed in Mexico and travel to the Arctic to feed. Once thought to be a conservation success story due to population rebound after commercial whaling, an alarm is now being sounded by Grey Whale researchers due to significant, rapid changes to this population.

There has been an awakening to the plight of these Grey Whales due to the number found dead in British Columbia waters recently. But it is important to know that concern about the number of Grey Whale deaths, how many are malnourished, and low calving rates has persisted for years.

The concern is so great that three leading Grey Whale biologists wrote a call to action in August 2025 entitled, “Concern for the Future of Gray Whales“. We include excerpts from that letter below.

The leading hypothesis for what is happening regarding declines in calving rates, increased deaths, and numbers of emaciated whales is that the Grey Whales that migrate to the feeding grounds in the Arctic (northern Bering and Chukchi seas) are not getting enough food due to environmental changes related to climate change – changes in sea ice cover, phytoplankton and sea ice-algae production that impact their prey. Grey Whales feed in the sand on species like ghost shrimp, polychaete worms, and amphipods.

The Grey Whales still migrate to the breeding lagoons in Mexico. But, without sufficient reserves, they are not equipped to deal with the winter fast, which can impact reproductive success, and they may not make it back to the feeding grounds in the Arctic and die along the migratory route.

When whales are emaciated, they are often more difficult to detect, making them more susceptible to vessel strike. Grey Whales are already at high risk of collision due to often feeding and travelling near shore. When emaciated, the lack of blubber makes them less buoyant, whereby they are lower in the water, and their blows are likely to be less pronounced too when the animals are weaker.

Emaciated Whales

The photos below show emaciated Grey Whales. With so little blubber, there is a depression between the bones of the skull and shoulder blades. The shoulder blades and spine are also visible.

GW 2026 04 15 WendySzaniszlo Barkley PP2 7448edited (1)

Please be alert for whales and report any dead, injured, or otherwise distressed whales to the DFO Incident Reporting Line at 1-800-465-4336. Legal minimum avoidance distance from Grey Whales is 100 metres or 200 metres if the whale is resting or with a calf. Because it can be difficult to determine if they are resting or with a calf, the most precautionary distance is 200 metres.

To learn more, please take our free online Whale-Safe Boating Course, which includes an enrichment resource on the identification and behaviour of coastal marine megafauna.

Excerpts From the Letter by Three Grey Whale Biologists – Drs. Jim Darling, Jorge Urbán Ramírez, and Steven Swartz

[Note: What is referenced as the Northern Pacific Migratory population in Canada is referenced as the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) population in the United States.]

From the letter:

“… things have changed dramatically in a very short period. Recent concern for the ENP gray whale population began in 2018 when researchers in Mexico noted a decline in the number of female whales with calves of the year, an increase in the proportion of the whales that were “skinny” and undernourished and increasing numbers of stranded dead whales in their winter breeding and calving areas in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula (Urban et al., 2019; Lobo-Barrera et al., 2024).

By 2019, strandings of gray whales increased significantly throughout their range along the North American Pacific coast, prompting the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to declare an “Unusual Mortality Event” (UME) for gray whales, which was considered over by 2023 (NOAA, 2023). However, the die-off has continued through 2024 and 2025. NOAA estimated that the ENP gray whale population declined from an estimated 26,960 whales in the 2015/2016 winter to 14,525 by the 2023/2024 winter, and then continued to decline to an estimated 12,950 whales in 2024/2025 (Eguchi et al., 2023, 2025).

The whales’ reproductive rates continued to decline in 2024 and 2025 winters, with only a handful of calves reported in the winter aggregation areas and lagoons (Martinez et al., 2025) and the lowest count of only 85 mother-calf pairs ever recorded during the spring northward migration of 2025 for this population (Lang et al., 2025) …

Screenshot 2026 04 24 at 21.04.06 — Table 1 from the letter: *Gray whale range-wide strandings reported as of April 30, 2025. Source: NOAA Unusual Mortality Event (UME) Working Group.*

The most likely cause of this pending crisis is large-scale ecosystem change in sub-Arctic and Arctic feeding grounds, which are critical to most of the ENP gray whale population. Earlier research suggested a connection between the numbers of gray whales and changes in Arctic Sea ice. At that time, this was believed to be the primary environmental factor influencing the population’s growth (Perryman et al., 2002). Recent research indicates that the whales may be encountering unprecedented climate-change driven conditions in the Arctic that are impacting the annual availability of prey species, forcing the population to adjust to conditions it has not experienced before (Bindoff et al., 2019; Moore et al., 2022).

Screenshot 2026 04 24 at 21.04.37 — Figure 2 from the letter: Gray whale strandings from 2019–July 2025. Red arrows indicate the start of the Unusual Mortality event in 2019 and its presumed end in 2023. Source: NOAA Unusual Mortality Event (UME) Working Group.

In summary, today, the gray whales are in precipitous decline, with significant range-wide die-offs, malnourished “skinny” individuals, and reduced reproductive rates. The best available analysis suggests a decrease in critical food species resulting from large-scale ecological changes in traditional Arctic summer feeding grounds. Without sufficient food during the summer, gray whales do not have the energy reserves necessary to compensate for the winter fast and to reproduce successfully.

We wish to emphasize that the ENP gray whales are the only remaining viable population of this species (and, indeed, the entire Mysticete family, Eschrichtiidae). Coastal bays and lagoons along the Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula are the only known winter aggregation, breeding and calving area of this species. As such, we believe, based on the evidence of the last few years and with a reasonable degree of caution, that this species should be considered highly vulnerable, and every effort to protect it is warranted.

We urge an international review and assessment of gray whale biology and management to be undertaken by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission or other appropriate body. We further appeal to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other agencies to reassess the protection status for this species especially considering the environmental changes affecting their prey and the challenges this poses for rebounding from this most recent decline.”

Protection Under Canada’s Species at Risk Act

All Grey Whales in Canada are currently managed as one population under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) with the status “Special Concern“. In 2017, the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada recommended to the Government of Canada that Grey Whales be protected as three populations of which two be recognized as “Endangered.”

Pacific Coast Feeding Group population – recommendation of Endangered by COSEWIC in 2017
Western Pacific population – recommendation of Endangered by COSEWIC in 2017
Northern Pacific Migratory population – recommendation of Not At Risk by COSEWIC 2017 but this is now the population about which there are also extreme concerns as described above.

To date, there has been no decision about the recommendations by the Government of Canada. Note from our graphic below that, under the Species at Risk Act, there are very significant differences in protection depending on if a population or species is recognized as Special Concern versus Threatened or Endangered.