Last spring and summer, 215 whales inexplicably washed up along North America’s West Coast, suggesting thousands more had also perished but had sunk at sea. Yet, according to Milstein and scientists involved with the investigation, it’s still unclear what caused the 2019 die-off and whether the whales will fare better this year. The journey north is particularly perilous because gray whales only eat while in the Arctic; therefore, they are running on empty as they make their return trip from Baja. When in their feeding grounds, a gray whale typically eats about 1.3 tons of food — mouth-fulls of crustaceans, worms, shrimp and small, schooling fish — per day, according to researchers. On a recent trip out of Ventura Harbor, a Times reporter spotted a pair of gray whales courting just north of Santa Cruz Island.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 24, 2020 12:56 UTC