By Team Reason | Reason Financial & Tax
Stand at the overlook near the Old Point Loma Lighthouse on a clear January morning and watch the water past the kelp beds. For a while, nothing. Then a puff of mist rises off the surface, hangs for a second, and drifts away. A dark back rolls through the swell. Someone next to you points. Then someone else points somewhere else.
That’s a gray whale, months into a commute that makes the 5 at rush hour look like a stroll to the mailbox.
How It Works
Every fall, eastern North Pacific gray whales leave Arctic summer feeding grounds and head south to Baja California’s lagoons: Laguna San Ignacio, Ojo de Liebre (Scammon’s Lagoon), and Magdalena Bay. In spring, they turn around and go back. NOAA Fisheries puts the round trip at about 10,000 miles, one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal.
They do it at about five miles per hour, according to the National Park Service. Around 75 miles a day. Two to three months each way.
And here’s the part that gets everyone in our office: they mostly don’t eat on the trip. Gray whales feed hard in the Arctic summer, then live off stored fat for the migration and breeding season. Ten thousand miles, no snacks.
Why San Diego Gets a Front-Row Seat
San Diego sits on the route, and the whales pass close. The Park Service describes a band from the kelp beds, about three-quarters of a mile off Point Loma, out to the horizon. On busy days, a single watch can mean many whales moving through that corridor.
The season runs roughly mid-December through March, with southbound traffic peaking in mid-January. The northbound return stretches from late February into April; mothers with new calves leave the lagoons last. A newborn calf is about 15 feet long and can weigh up to a ton.
Point Loma also has whale-science history. Systematic shore counts of passing gray whales began there in the early 1950s, with Scripps and federal partners on the cliffs.
The Numbers So Far
NOAA estimated a peak of about 27,000 eastern North Pacific gray whales around 2016. By 2024/25, the estimate had fallen to roughly 12,900 (range about 11,690 to 13,190), among the lowest counts since counts began in the late 1960s. NOAA ties the decline to less food and changing Arctic feeding conditions. A formal Unusual Mortality Event ran from 2019 to 2023.
Calves tell it starkly. NOAA counted about 85 calves in 2025, the lowest since its calf series began in 1994. Earlier years in that series were far higher.
Then, in July 2026, NOAA released its 2025/26 estimate: about 17,750 whales on average (range 15,930 to 20,530). That’s a big jump, and NOAA was careful. The agency said the increase likely exceeds what births alone could produce, and may reflect survey variability or shifts in migration routes rather than true growth.
That number alone is worth sitting with for a moment. A good headline, a cautious footnote. Anyone who’s read a quarterly earnings report will recognize the pattern: one strong data point is encouraging, but the trend is what matters.
The Overachievers
If 10,000 miles sounds like a lot, meet Varvara. She’s a western gray whale tagged by Oregon State University researchers off Russia’s Sakhalin Island in 2011. She swam to Mexico and back: about 22,500 kilometers, or nearly 14,000 miles, in 172 days. At the time, it was the longest mammal migration ever documented (Biology Letters).
A few more facts for the lunch table:
- Adults reach about 49 feet and tens of thousands of pounds. Females are larger than males.
- They are bottom feeders, rolling onto their sides to suck sediment and filter small crustaceans.
- Instead of a dorsal fin, they have a hump and a row of “knuckles” down the back.
- Those pale patches through binoculars are barnacles and whale lice.
- Gray whales disappeared from the Atlantic by the 1700s. One turned up off Nantucket in March 2024, confirmed by the New England Aquarium.
The Bigger Picture
Whalers in the 1850s, following Charles Scammon into the Baja lagoons, nearly wiped out the eastern population. (They called gray whales “devil fish.”) Protection came in the 1930s and 1940s, and in 1994 the eastern population became the first marine mammal removed from the Endangered Species List due to recovery.
The last decade has been a reminder that recovery isn’t a straight line. But the whales are still making the trip, and San Diego still gets to watch.
Why We Love It
You don’t need a boat, a ticket, or a plan. You need a clear morning, a jacket, and some patience.
Cabrillo National Monument has a whale overlook and a glassed-in observatory near the old lighthouse. Torrey Pines and Birch Aquarium’s plaza in La Jolla are strong land spots too. Local boats run roughly December through April, and the San Diego Natural History Museum and Birch Aquarium offer naturalist-led programs in season. The Cabrillo National Monument Foundation hosts a Whale Watch Festival, typically in January (check cnmf.org). Year to year, the show can vary: some weekends quiet, some crowded with blows.
So this winter, when your own commute feels long, drive out to Point Loma. Somebody out there has you beat by about 9,980 miles.
Team Reason
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