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Gray Whales

Gray Whales. By Connor Muilenburg. Gray Whale Topics. Physical description Whales are mammals Feeding Swimming behaviors Migration Breeding Predators Population. Physical Description. Gray whales grow to be 45-50 feet long. Gray whales weigh about 36 tons.

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Gray Whales

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  1. Gray Whales By Connor Muilenburg

  2. Gray Whale Topics • Physical description • Whales are mammals • Feeding • Swimming behaviors • Migration • Breeding • Predators • Population

  3. Physical Description • Gray whales grow to be 45-50 feet long. • Gray whales weigh about 36 tons. • The gray whale's skin is gray with white spots and has lots of barnacles. • The gray whale has two flippers, no dorsal fin, and small ridges along its back. • Gray whales have baleens (not teeth) and two blow holes.

  4. Gray Whale Diagram

  5. Whales are Mammals Gray whales are mammals because: • They have hair (calves have hair on the front of their head). • They give birth to live young. • They have lungs to breathe air. • They are warm blooded. • Whale calves drink their mother’s milk.

  6. Feeding • Gray whales are the only bottom feeding whale.  • They eat shrimp-like amphipods, crustaceans, worms, fish and squid that live in the muddy bottoms of the North Pacific Ocean. • They scoop up a mouthful of mud, the baleens filter out the food, then the whale spits out the mud. • The whale will stay down for 3-5 minutes to eat. • A trail of dents in the ocean floor is left behind where the whale hit the ground. • A single gray whale is believed to turn over 50 acres of sediment during a season of feeding.

  7. Swimming Behaviors Breeching is when a whale jumps out of the water and then splashes down. • Sounding is when a whale shows its flukes.

  8. More Swimming Behaviors Spouting is when a whale blows out air and water drops spray up. • Spy-hopping is when a whale comes out of the water high enough to see.

  9. Migration • Gray whales spend the summer and part of the fall in the Chukchi Sea to feed in the rich Arctic waters. • Gray whales spend the winter in the warm waters near Baja, CA to calve and mate. • The round-trip is a 12,500 mile swim.

  10. Breeding • Gray whales breed mostly in warm waters. • The gestation period is about 13.5 months. • The newborn calf is about 15 feet long and weighs about one ton. • Within 30 minutes of birth the baby whale can swim. • Calves drink milk for 6 to 7 months. • The mother and calf stay together for about a year. • Females have a calf every 2 or more years.

  11. Predators • Killer whales, large sharks, and humans are the gray whales' only natural predators. • Killer whales hunt gray whales off the Pacific Northwest coast of the USA. • There has been an increase in the number of packs of killer whales waiting for the mothers and calves to begin their northward journey.  • Rogue or wild Orcas follow the gray whales along the migration route.

  12. Population • The gray whale population went way down after 1857 because a hunter found the Baja, CA calving grounds. Whales were easy to kill in the shallow water. • In 1925 factory boats were invented which made whaling easier. • By 1946 gray whales were almost hunted to extinction. • In 1946 laws were made so no more whaling was allowed. The gray whale population is now over 20,000 worldwide.

  13. References American Cetacean Society (1996). American Cetacean Society Fact Sheet: Gray Whales. Online:http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/graywhl.htm Baja Jones Adventure Travel (2001). The Gray Whale Advocate. Online:http://www.greywhale.com Enchantedlearning.com (2001). All About Whales. Online:http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/species/Graywhale.shtml No Author Listed (1998). California Gray Whale Tutorial. Online:http://www.slocs.k12.ca.us/whale/whale1.html

  14. The End

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