Contributor: 'Save the whales' worked for decades, but now gray whales are starving

"They're also a major tourist attraction during their annual 12,000-mile round-trip migration between the Arctic and their breeding lagoons in Baja California. In late winter and early spring - when they head back north and are closest to the shoreline, with the moms protecting the calves - they can be viewed not only from whale-watching boats but also from promontories along the California coast including Point Loma in San Diego, Point Lobos in Monterey and Bodega Head and Shelter Cove in Northern California."

"Over the four decades following passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the eastern whale numbers grew steadily to 27,000 by 2016, a hopeful story of protection leading to restoration. Then, unexpectedly over the last nine years, the eastern gray whale population has crashed, plummeting by more than half to 12,950, according to a recent by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lowest numbers since the 1970s."

California gray whales migrate about 12,000 miles round-trip between the Arctic and Baja breeding lagoons and are frequently visible from coastal promontories and whale-watching boats, particularly in late winter and early spring when mothers protect calves near shore. Protections such as the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and the 1986 global ban on commercial whaling enabled eastern population recovery to about 27,000 by 2016. Over the past nine years the eastern population crashed to roughly 12,950, the lowest since the 1970s. Changing ocean and Arctic ice conditions tied to fossil-fuel-driven climate change are causing starvation and increasing extinction risk.

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