EPOW Ecology Picture of the Week -- Gray Whale Feeding

Explanation: In the frigid and productive Arctic Ocean waters off the north coast of Alaska, there be whales here! This is a gray whale feeding ... a sight not often observed by whale-watchers, and seldom photographed.

We are in a small plane over the Chukchi Sea, northwest of Barrow, Alaska, over the open ocean on a July expedition in search of walruses and sea ice. We spot several gray whales over the continental shelf feeding on the ocean bottom (the "benthos"). They dive to the sea floor, turn sideways, and scoop up a huge mouthful of bottom sediment, hopefully with crustaceans in the mix.

As the whales surface, they push the sediment out through their baleen (which they have instead of teeth) that filters the catch, retaining the food and expelling the rest in clouds of murky debris. The clouds in these photos are all under the water.

Gray whales feed mostly in the high Arctic on their summer range. They are the only baleen whales that are mostly bottom-feeders. What the impact of climate change will be on their distribution and their food sources is unknown but is being studied.

The multiple subsurface clouds are likely expelled from a single dive.
(The smudge on the left side of this photo is from the
airplane propellers.)

The whale here is shown spouting through its dual blowholes; the blow
can reach 4.5 meters (15 feet).

This whale -- seen at the top of this photo under the water
except for its fluke (tail) -- is feeding in tight circles,
likely doing repeated dives to the same spot on the ocean
floor where it probably found a nice concentration of food.

EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week