A rare sighting happen again when a gray whale was seen drawing closer to the coastline just off Stanley last Tuesday afternoon. The event started around 2 p.m. near the Third Beach before it swam and headed forward to Siwash Rock.
The Gray whale or also called as baleen whales, migrates yearly between feeding and breeding grounds. This whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North Amercian) population and a critically endangered western North Pacific (Asian) population.
Aside from that, it has a dark slate-gray color, covered by characteristics gray-white patterns , their scars were left by parasites which drops off its body while in the cold feeding grounds.
Vancouver Aquarium releases that the gray whale visitation was due to its feeding expedition. Gray whales are part of the bottom feeders, eating also small, shrimps like animals called amphipods that live on muddy ocean floors. Aside from that, they were feeding off to crustaceans like lobsters, crabs, and shrimps, as it scoops them off of the sea floor.
Because they love shallow waters, they usually travel near shoreline and is mostly seen along Pacific Rim National Park. This is located at the other side of Vancouver.
Grey whales has been a common sight in Howe Sound, but decreased takes placed between 1880 and 1900 and that is due to over-haunting. After a hundred years of rehabilitation by local conservationist on Howe Sound, grey whales returned for the first one in more than 100 years.
Meghan Moore, a researcher in Vancouver Aquarium, says that the often visitation only says that marine restoration has been powerfully efficient. She even added, that there's been a lot of recovery efforts in Howe Sound. And so there's a possibility that there are more food out there for the whales, she says.
