Gray Whales Migrate About 10,000 Miles Every Year

Every year gray whales swim the length of a continent and back. NOAA Fisheries states that gray whales make one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, traveling about 10,000 miles round-trip and in some cases upwards of 14,000 miles. The eastern North Pacific whales move between two very different places. They spend the summer feeding in the Arctic, mostly in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas. In the fall they head south along the coast of North America to spend the winter in the lagoons and bays of Baja California, Mexico, where calves are born. The route follows the coast, and shore-based observers have counted the whales migrating south along the central California coast in most years since 1967.