"Recently, while sailing with friends on San Francisco Bay, I enjoyed the sight of harbor porpoises, cormorants, pelicans, seals and sea lions and then the spouting plume and glistening back of a gray whale that gave me pause. Too many have been seen inside the bay recently. California's gray whales have been considered an environmental success story since the passage of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and 1986's global ban on commercial whaling. They're also a major tourist attraction during their annual 12,000-mile"
"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 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lowest numbers since the 1970s."
Harbor porpoises, cormorants, pelicans, seals, sea lions and gray whales have been observed in San Francisco Bay, with an increasing number of gray whales entering the bay. Eastern gray whales migrate about 12,000 miles between the Arctic and breeding lagoons in Baja California and can be viewed from coastal promontories during late winter and early spring. Protections under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and the 1986 global whaling ban allowed eastern gray whale numbers to rise from about 10,000 in 1972 to 27,000 by 2016. Over the past nine years the population crashed to roughly 12,950, and changing ocean and Arctic ice conditions linked to fossil-fuel-driven climate change are renewing extinction risk.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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