Whale watching across California

AS GRAYS AND HUMPBACKS ENDURE AN EPIC JOURNEY, THE GOLDEN STATE HOLDS A PRIME SEAT

- ALEX PULASKI

AN INTEGRAL PART of whale watching, Capt. Rick Podolak explained as we zipped out of North San Diego Bay past Point Loma, is establishing trust. That and a fast vessel, good timing and luck. All of which we hoped would align during a whale-watching excursion in late December, the month typically inaugurating an annual gray whale migration from the Arctic south to Baja California. "We call them our Christmas whales," said Podolak, of Adventure Whale Watching.

Grays endure an epic round-trip journey of 10,000 miles or more, and California holds a prime seat through May. Along with being a migratory route for grays and humpbacks, this stretch of Pacific Coast from San Diego to beyond the Bay Area offers seasonal feeding grounds that attract a variety of whale species throughout the year.

Tempering the enthusiasm Cheeseman and other researchers hold around current thriving whale populations are significant concerns about gray whales dying. Grays’ numbers along the Pacific Coast have plunged by half in the last decade, to about 13,000, due to climate change affecting their Arctic food supply.

"Last year was by far the lowest count we've ever had, and this year is even lower," said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a marine biologist and whale researcher who coordinates an annual gray whale census out of Rancho Palos Verdes.

In December 2025, volunteers spotted 14 whales headed south to calving lagoons in Mexico. In December 2024, they counted 33. In December 2014, by comparison, there were 393.

With numbers like those rattling in my head and the clock ticking as Podolak piloted us north along the coastline, I grew increasingly doubtful about us witnessing the grays’ movement south. We were looking for backs or flukes (tails) breaking the water. Most telling is the spout — the condensed mass of water vapor and mucus that whales force from their blowholes as they surface.