Blue Whales Seen On San Diego Coast

Blue Whales are the largest creatures on earth, and have decided to come stay on the San Diego Coast.  The whales are usually along the coast from mid June to October.  This has helped businesses and tourism in San Diego as it is a longer season for whale watching. 

Well after the traditional gray-whale-watching season that has become a staple of San Diego tourism, Capt. Kenny Manzoni last week ferried visitors from Texas offshore in search of a much bigger prize.

Blue whales — the largest creatures on Earth — have taken to lolling in coastal waters so reliably in recent years that some companies have extended their outings nearly year-round to take advantage of their allure. Their regular presence from mid-June into October is tied to larger cycles of oceanography, and it has injected money into local ventures and complemented other local draws, such as SeaWorld.

“To be out on the water with an animal of that size … is just a remarkable thing,” said Manzoni, who owns Adventure Rib Rides at Harbor Island. “It has become a wonderful phenomenon here in the summer months.”

For many people, the repeated appearance of blues offers the chance of a lifetime — an opportunity to see the biggest animal ever known and one that remains endangered worldwide. Blue whales famously grow longer than 100 feet, with the biggest ones typically found in the Antarctic. Locally, they are closer to 85 feet — more than three times longer than Manzoni’s rigid inflatable boat and about twice as long as the legions of grays that migrate through the region.

Manzoni started his tours in 2005 and has seen a steady increase in blues virtually every year so that today he figures 50 reside offshore at any one time during summer months. He often finds the whales gathering at Nine Mile Bank off Point Loma, near where the coastal shelf drops off to the deep ocean. 

They graze so methodically that boat captains often follow a group of them day after day.

“We are getting whale-watching right now like we have never had before,” said Capt. Scott McDaniels on Sea Adventure 80 at H&M Landing in San Diego.

“We are currently in a cooler water cycle,” said Capt. Frank Ursitti on Ranger 85 at H&M Landing. “As a result of deep-water upwellings, these cooler water temps are nutrient-rich and set the stage for massive plankton blooms, which in turn provide ideal conditions for krill to flourish in the region.”

Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, also links the phenomenon to food, for which blues can swim 140 miles a day. Eastern Pacific blues winter in the waters off Mexico and points south, then forage their way north.

“In recent years, there have been a lot of blue whales at the Coronados due to an abundance of krill, which they do not pass up,” Mate said. “One good El Niño — when the upwellings that produce krill fail — and blue whales in good body condition will be hard to find as they extend their ranges trying to find high concentrations of food.”

McDaniels typically sees three or four blues munching on krill, but on magical days there might be two dozen blues and fin whales gorging themselves when the ocean turns orange with the shrimplike creatures. Sometimes he can idle for 20 minutes or more until “the whales will start acting like dolphins; they roll over on their sides then look up at you.”

Said Ursitti: “Sometimes the whales themselves are as curious with us as we are with them,”

The current population size of blue whales in the eastern Pacific Ocean is unknown because budget constraints at the National Marine Fisheries Service mean the agency hasn’t done a ship-based survey since 2008 and it’s not clear when the next one will be. Jay Barlow, a biologist at the fisheries service in La Jolla, said he noticed blues sticking around through the summer starting about five years ago, as they would “fill up their tanks.”

He said 2,000 or 3,000 transit the California coast each year, making it one of the largest concentrations of the species on the planet. Those numbers are still far below what they were in pre-whaling days (commercial whaling for blues was banned internationally in 1966), but local blues aren’t as hard-hit as they are in other parts of the globe. In the southern hemisphere, scientists figured the pre-exploitation counts were as high as 200,000 and in recent years the numbers have been pegged at about 1,400.

Today, the biggest threats known to blues include being hit by ships, the subject of much research and concern in California. They also may be snagged in commercial fishing gear.

Blue whales give away their location by spouting a column of water 30 feet into the air. The spray is visible from miles away and is distinguishable from other whales because the water is expelled in a tighter column than that of humpbacks and other species. Manzoni said the June gloom actually makes it easier to see whales because the water is typically calm enough so that white caps don’t mask the spouts.

The National Marine Fisheries Service asks boaters to stay 100 yards from marine mammals and avoid getting in between whale mothers and their calves. Otherwise, the agency encourages excursions in search of blues — as long as they linger. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center has issued an El Niño watch, saying there’s a 50 percent chance one will develop this year, and that could ultimately alter local blue whale abundance.

“We can’t really predict where they will be next year,” said Barlow at the fisheries service. “Take advantage while they are here. Go out and take a look.”

To read more about the Blue Whales go to UT San Diego.