A gray whale has been sighted in Walvis Bay, Namibia.  This is amazing news, as gray whales were hunted to extinction in the North Atlantic by the 18th century and have never been sighted before south of the equator.  Gray whales were also hunted to near extinction in the Pacific in the 20th century.  Scientists now speculate that either the sighting is an indication of the population’s recovery or alternatively, that climate change is disrupting the whale’s feeding habits.

First grey whale spotted south of the equator

Gray whales in the Eastern Pacific Ocean travel north and south between the Arctic and Baja Mexico, a round trip of between 9,900–14,000 miles, the longest annual migration of any mammal. Now apparently, at least some grey whales are traveling even further. In the mid-1980s, there were three gray whales sightings in the eastern Beaufort Sea, placing them 585 kilometers (364 mi) further east than their known range at the time.  In 2010, a gray whale was sighted off Spain and swam in the Mediterranean as far as Israel.  The whale seen off the Namibian coast is not believed to the same whale observed off Israel in 2010.

Thanks to Phil Leon for passing along the news.