Gray Whales in Peril: San Francisco Bay - What is Being Done, or Can Be Done? We Talk with The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito

In this episode, we talk about a devastating crisis that unfolded this year in the San Francisco Bay. March to June 2025 saw an unprecedented 36 gray whales enter, and stay for extended periods in one of the West coast's busiest waterways. The result? A staggering mortality rate with over 20 dead whales—roughly half of all observed individuals—primarily from vessal strikes. We wanted to find out why and what can be and is being done about it. Scott Mercer brought in Josie Slaathaug (pronounced Slot-Howg) to talk about it. She's a cetacean specialist at the Marine Mammal Center and Sonoma State University graduate researcher. She created and maintained the bay's gray whale photo ID catalog, and shares how this extraordinary year contrasts sharply with 2024's minimal whale presence. Most disturbing is that many were, malnourished whales—yet many were in good body condition, actively feeding, and displaying rich social behaviors rarely documented in the bay before: spy hopping, chin slapping, bubble blowing, and forming tight pairs. The maritime community's response offers a glimmer of hope despite the heartbreak. Ferry captains shared real-time whale locations, vessels rerouted especially during nighttime hours, and the Coast Guard broadcast regular whale alerts. Despite these coordinated efforts, vessel strikes still claimed too many lives. Slaathaug's research, matching carcasses to living whales photographed days earlier, paints a poignant picture of an individual whale's final days. How might climate change and shifting Arctic feeding grounds be altering migration patterns? Can we develop more proactive protection measures before next year's migration? We talk about that and more.

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Mendonoma Whale & Seal Study
Founded by Scott & Tree Mercer to document the occurrence, diversity, & behavior of marine mammals.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Gray Whale Crisis
• 3:02 Meet Josie Slothauk, Cetacean Specialist
• 9:19 Gray Whale Photo ID Catalog
• 16:17 Unprecedented Whale Mortality in 2025
• 21:34 Maritime Industry Response Efforts
• 34:43 Whale Behavior and Social Interactions
• 45:36 Gray Whale Migration Patterns
• 52:01 Final Thoughts and Closing

Transcript

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 0:10

Welcome to the Resilient Earth Podcast, where we talk with speakers from the United States and around the world about the critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking. It's July 4th, 2025, friday. Today, we're going to talk about what is happening close by in the Bay of San Francisco, right here in Northern California. We thought it was important to raise awareness about the high mortality rate recently of the gray whale population that has been visiting this busy and heavily trafficked San Francisco Bay this year from about March to early June. Why is it happening and why did it happen? What can be done about it?

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 1:16

Scott found a terrific specialist, a cetacean specialist, at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, the world's largest marine hospital in the world, and it's their 50th anniversary. Her name is Josie Slaathaugh (pronounced Slot-Howg), and in 2023, Josie joined the Marine Mammal Center as a cetacean ecology intern and is working now on her master's degree at Sonoma State University. The photo ID catalog which she created and maintains now contains over 100 whales and key data from that shows increased whales entering the bay this year at a total of 36, many of which were malnourished and most of which stayed for more than 30 days and then because of the dense traffic in the bay. Tragically they died by vessel strikes. More than 20 whales have died in the area this year 15 or 16, which were in the bay itself. We're going to talk about that next, but first a word from our sponsor.

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Josie Slaathaug: 3:04

Nice to meet you. Scott and Tree and Leigh Anne. Awesome to put faces to the names, Exactly right.

Scott Mercer: 3:11

What we thought we'd do is let you introduce yourself and give us your background. You obviously have quite a bit of education.

Josie Slaathaug: 3:18

Awesome, I'm excited. Thanks for having me.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 3:21

Well, thanks for making the time. We know how incredibly busy you have been this spring and we're really excited to hear what you've been doing and what your thoughts are on what's going on with our beloved gray whales and other cetaceans.

Josie Slaathaug: 3:36

Yeah, definitely so.

Josie Slaathaug: 3:37

To introduce myself, my name is Slaathaug (Slot-Howg) is is how you pronounce my long and complicated last name.

Josie Slaathaug: 3:46

I grew up in South Dakota and I went to undergraduate in Boston at Northeastern University, and then after that I did a brief, about a year period of time where I worked in Miami for the county government doing sea turtle work and tried to get into whales and get into grad school.

Josie Slaathaug: 4:09

I had done an internship with Sarasota Dolphin Research Project, so I had gotten some experience that way. Then I joined the Marine Mammal Center in 2023 as a cetacean ecology intern and we were originally supposed to be here for six months. Then, through a private donation, we're able to extend that into just under a year. During that time, I applied for the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which I was awarded and that has supported me continuing my work into my master's degree, which I'm working on now at Sonoma State University, while I work here at the center part-time to full-time it ended up in this season. So, yeah, I'm doing a lot, have my hand in a lot of different things here at the center, but my primary role here is maintaining our gray whale photo ID catalog that I created as an intern.

Scott Mercer: 5:07

Wonderful. How did you get hooked up with the center?

Josie Slaathaug: 5:11

So, my friend, when I was an intern at Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, she was an intern there with me. When she finished that internship she came to the Marine Mammal Center's Monterey Bay location and she was an intern there and then she would receive their new postings through the alumni page and she had always said you would love California, you should try to get out here, you would really love it here. I surfed too. So she was kind of like you got to get out here. And then she saw the internship posted before it went up to you know the public and she sent it to me and she said you would be perfect for this. Put me down as a reference. I can send you know, an introductory email. She knew my supervisor, julia O'Hearn, so I had a personal connection and someone who recommended that position to me and it could not have worked out better for me.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 6:05

That is wonderful. We know Bill Keener very well. He's the one who introduced you to us.

Josie Slaathaug: 6:19

Yeah, Bill and I work very closely. He helped me a lot when I was making the photo ID catalog and has been a really close colleague through that entire process and then through the application process for my NSF grant as well. He's been very helpful in, you know, connecting me with as many people as he can, obviously with you two as well. And now Bill, over time, I think, is kind of trying to hand more of his roles off at the center, and so I've taken on some of his duties that he has maintained here over the years, like our long-term citizen science sighting database for gray whale sightings here in the Bay, and so I work with him pretty much daily on calls for different presentations and data things, and he is a joy to work with seriously.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 7:04

He's been a really a treasure to us all the years that we've been really supportive of the work that we've done and he's been on. We've had him as a guest on Resilient Earth. In the fall we usually do an Ocean Life Symposium and Bill has graciously participated for many years in that as well.

Josie Slaathaug: 7:26

So yeah, I had.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 7:28

I suspected exactly what you were saying that he might be ready for a new phase in life at this point. So would you like to tell us about the gray whales? What have you been saying?

Josie Slaathaug: 7:39

Yeah, so with the photo ID catalog that I created, I have a few different components to my master's thesis that I can talk about that I'm working on Over the years that the gray whales came in. We really saw an uptick in 2018 through 2023. So that coincided with that period of UME and we saw gray whales in differing body conditions but overall looking pretty skinny here in the Bay. We saw them exhibiting some feeding behaviors and some of the mortality that we saw here in the Bay was malnutrition related, but also vessel strike related. From some of those carcasses we were able to collect some stomach samples. So we have some ongoing work with looking at what those samples are composed of and where those invertebrates came from, if we can say they came from the bay. Things like that are still in the works.

Josie Slaathaug: 8:38

But I jumped in as an intern and looked back through all of the years of photographs that we had been given by citizen scientists, by whale watching naturalists and then by, you know, our research colleagues, kind of opportunistically going out over the years, and then I also was on the boat actively collecting photos. So I created the photo ID catalog. That's just under 100 whales for 2018 through 2023. And then in 2024, we had something interesting happen, which was very few whales and overall, very few sightings. So we identified, I think, 16 or 17 whales in 2023. And then in 2024, that jumped down to six. I mean it was a very steep decrease. The number of whales were seen for a much shorter amount of time, seemed like they kind of popped in and continued on their way. So you know, 2025, we were not ramping up for a big season. We were expecting to see very few whales here, probably again, and for short amounts of time. The opposite happened and we saw the most whales we've ever seen in one year. We saw, I can officially say, photo ideas processed for this year.

Josie Slaathaug: 10:02

We saw 36 whales in the bay is processed for this year. We saw 36 whales in the bay. Most of them stayed for more than 30 days or were photographed for more than 30 days. A handful of them were photographed for between 50 and 60 days, some of them longer. We had a very high rate of mortality in our area. Overall in the bay area it was more than 20 whales that died in the bay itself. I think that number is 15 or 16 just under kind of half of what we saw overall for live whales.

Josie Slaathaug: 10:39

And then that brings me to the second component of my thesis overall, which is using our live whale photo ID catalog to go back and compare photos to carcasses from the same time frame. A lot of times when gray whales die, san Francisco is so tidally influenced that we don't really have any evidence of where they died. They move so quickly and the carcasses can move for miles and miles, and miles in a matter of a few hours. Matching the live catalog to carcasses can really add some evidence as to where these whales may have died or just give us insight into their last days, and I can share that. I've been able to successfully make many matches from carcasses in previous years, but also this year. That data is still being processed, but already I have five matches from carcasses this year to known individuals, with some windows of death as short as three days.

Josie Slaathaug: 11:49

So it's really a credit to how often we were out on the water this year, how big of a lift our necropsy, our pathology department did, our partners at California Academy of Sciences Everyone made just such a big effort to get on the water, respond to as many of these carcasses as we could, and do so in a timely manner so that the skin was still remaining on them. So this year saw a lot of live whales, saw a lot of dead whales. The most interesting part about it probably was that this year we saw a lot of whales in what appeared to be at least fair to good body condition and a lot of feeding behavior. So it's, you know, makes the mortality end of it a little sadder. We had a lot of these whales that were examined, had evidence of vessel strike interactions, and that's on the Marine Mammal Center website. So I think of the eight examined, six of them were able to be attributed to vessel strikes.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 12:53

Can you describe to how the team feels when they find these things and what thoughts are going through their head about what might be happening that would cause these kinds of things? Because I met Kathy George at this last International Ocean Film Festival where there was a panel from the Marine Mammal Center, and one of them is a woman who did the net crop seeds. I can't remember her name, but I met Kathy from the year before at the same film festival and the one thing that she was saying this year was that she felt more positive that the ship industry was beginning to really do what they could to slow down their traffic when they knew whales were present and even alter course. Can you tell us what the team was thinking when you find these things and what's going through your minds about what could be the reason and what could be done?

Josie Slaathaug: 13:59

I love that question because I think sometimes as scientists, we're expected to really put emotion aside and when we work with charismatic megafauna, it is impossible. We work with charismatic megafauna, it is impossible, and I think, to have a team that acknowledges the emotions that go into. Also, you know how hard the work can be and physically draining, mentally draining, emotionally taxing to witness months and months of an increased mortality rate. It was very taxing this year and I think I and my team, my interns, we all kind of feel like we're coming up out of a fog from it processing some of this data now. But to speak to the emotions while the work is happening, I'd like to share. I think my perspective shifted at several points and the emotions really changed throughout the course of the season. I remember the first day I went out on the boat this year because the gray whales, I joke, they love to read my outlook calendar and plan some crazy things for while I'm gone. So I took a week vacation and I went camping in Hawaii this is in March, off the grid, right and I every once in a while get a cell service and I'm getting calls and texts and emails that the great whales are here and oh no, you know, it's kind of like where are you? So I knew I was coming back to okay, I'm going to hit the ground running when I'm back. So came back on the 25th of March, the 28th, I'm on the boat and it was like nothing I had ever experienced, because in 2023, ever experienced because in 2023, the highest number of whales we had in the bay in one day was six, and that felt crazy. It felt like whoa, this is a way too busy of an area to be keeping track of where all these whales are. And then I was out on the boat on the 28th and it was like another one, another one and there's one over there and I'm seeing one a mile and a half out over there. There were, I think we photographed nine whales that day and it was really like zero to a hundred, right, I got back when I had left I think I was gone for seven days. When I had left, we had nothing in the bay and when I came back, it's like, oh my God, the most we've ever had in one day. The interns had not arrived yet, so it was me and some volunteers and I was instructing people on how to take data, how to take photos.

Josie Slaathaug: 16:30

While we were out in that situation and I really had not experienced anything like that, my feeling at the time was a pit in my stomach on they will not all make it out of here alive. We were seeing close call after close call with these huge shipping vessels, ferries, recreational vessels, I mean all vessel traffic we were seeing just really have close calls with these whales. And it is. It is a sinking feeling as a researcher who has looked at many carcasses and responded to many carcasses and all I could think of was we are in for it. Even if we had At that time, even if I could have thought, you know, half of those whales would die, still seemed like such a big number. And this year what we did was continue to surpass records Eight whales in seven days at the peak.

Josie Slaathaug: 17:29

And it was really emotional in that moment to kind of look around and just think this is not a safe place for them, think this is not a safe place for them, the Bay is not a safe place for them. And then to Kathy George to her credit, our department director, she has done so much background work and legwork with the maritime community here in San Francisco Bay that when she went to them with this increase in sightings, this increase in what we started to see mortalities, they respected her seat at the table and they wanted to hear what can we do? Because it was really, you know, a difficult time for them, in the sense that something we're experiencing for the first time. They're also experiencing for the first time this is not just one whale that you need to avoid in this one area. This is now whales scattered throughout the bay, constantly moving, sometimes coming together into pairs and splitting apart. You know, a loose kind of grouping or association in some areas whales feeding, and they really received our expertise on this. They received our recommendations and our guidelines and you know I can say this is the most action that I had ever seen the maritime community take, specifically the ferries. I think there's still work to be done, probably if this were to be the new normal year to year. I think we see that reflected in the mortality rates and a lot of them being vessel strikes. But I can say this is the most action I ever saw from the industry in one year and is a credit to them on how quickly they were able to change and react to this increase in whales.

Josie Slaathaug: 19:22

We saw definitely rerouting at night, so rerouting out of a high area of known whale occurrence during hours in which they would have a limited visibility. During hours in which they would have a limited visibility we saw ferry companies offer to add essentially their low visibility extra observer to the bridge to just look for whales along their route On the water. Lots of vessels announcing to Vessel Traffic Service, calling in the whales' positions so that it gets updated over time as the whales move with the tides. When we were out there we would call in every whale sighting to vessel traffic. Vessel traffic would then re-announce to ferries when they would be departing to travel that route that you know you're going to probably encounter a whale at this buoy and then two more whales are probably around that buoy. That was last updated at whatever time it was probably around that buoy. That was last updated at whatever time it was. And then we also saw when mortality started to increase.

Josie Slaathaug: 20:21

The US Coast Guard on vessel traffic service offered to announce at regular intervals a notice to mariners and so they would say you know all stations, all stations, all stations. This is the United States Coast Guard. We've received an unusual amount of reports of whales in the bay, we're exercising caution and advising all mariners to slow down and adjust course when necessary. So it really was a big movement in the maritime community to do their best to support these whales in what is one of the busiest bays on the West Coast. Certainly, and I think even with that huge lift that that community did in times of far departure from what we're set up for as conservation managers, there's really a lot of catch-up that can't be done. So, as reactive as we try to be, it will take proactive measures to fully protect the species in the bay.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 21:28

Wow, josie, your words just painted this entire picture and at least my mind picture and at least my mind, I'm sure a lot of people's minds about how you have a traditionally active and very popular bay area where people are used to all kinds of boating activities sailboats, fishing, speed boats, shipping containers, ferries that go about their daily activities and then suddenly you've got this unusual event with all these whales coming in when typically they're not there, and suddenly all that information's got to be dispersed and everybody alerted and maybe not everybody gets that information at the same time. I mean, you really encapsulated for us that image of what transpires during something like that. Now, can you say what time frame again that was?

Josie Slaathaug: 22:28

Yeah, so when it first really picked up was the end of March. Picked up was the end of March and you know we hit our peak of sightings probably early April. That continued pretty much at that peak all the way through the end of May and into early June. So what I can say is that, you know, by mid-May we were seeing a lot of ferries taking evasive measures while we were on the water and we were getting reports of a lot of ferries slowing down, altering course both in real time and proactively at night, avoiding the areas that these whales were known to be at. We also saw ferry captains sharing information with each other.

Josie Slaathaug: 23:16

There was a few weeks where probably a few groups of individual whales had a very distinct feeding pattern in which they used the tides to move, and the ferry captains observed this because you know they're traveling every few hours through the same exact area, few hours through the same exact area, and they would kind of say, okay, well, on flood the whales tend to be here day to day, and on ebb the whales move over here, and that information was shared from ferry captain to ferry captain for them to inform those routes. And now we all know, especially gray whales can be tricky and individuals vary a lot in what they do, so there's no blanket statement all the whales like to be here. No, there's always going to be whales that do their own thing or change it up on the day-to-day, and that is where I think more proactive solutions and thinking forward to the next year is so important, because these reactive measures can only do so much truly.

Scott Mercer: 24:22

I'm really glad to hear about the cooperation. I'll tell you a little story about not getting cooperation. One of the winters that I worked with North Atlantic right whales down in Florida and Georgia we're from Maine, that's how that happened. But Amy Knowlton from the New England Aquarium and I went down to the shipping office in Jacksonville, Florida, after we arrived down there with the intention of asking them to slow down because of right whales and they burst out laughing. It was the most absurd thing they heard. They were going to tell ships to slow down because the whole idea was to get in there as quick as possible, load up again and get out. So it's good to hear you saying that.

Josie Slaathaug: 24:58

Yeah, I think, having done the work I did in Florida for the short length of time just about a year but working with endangered sea turtles there and facing very little government interest, industry cooperation there. The problem is turtles crawling towards the lights, and there are many known solutions to this, one of which is just is turtles crawling towards the lights, and there are many known solutions to this, one of which is just changing the color of the lights. And the kind of bottom line there in that area was always economics. Granted, this is, you know, south Florida, so different parts of Florida, I know, have better policies for this.

Josie Slaathaug: 25:37

But I am reminded, thinking of that in my past and just what you were saying, scott, with how your expertise as a scientist is received in these areas where people have the ability to make change, is so important.

Josie Slaathaug: 25:48

And I count myself lucky to be in California because of that, because we have a much more receptive audience in the industry and just thinking about how far the country has come into recognizing the importance of these species and it's only going to hopefully get better and better over time. But this is, I really can't understate in large part due to all of the logistical work, the legwork, the connection building, the networking of our department director Kathy this was kind of her brainchild the Harbor Safety Committee, to join that as a partner at the Marine Mammal Center and to share our knowledge, to share our data, to be open communicators to this industry, to come with an open mind to hearing their solutions, their difficulties in the maritime industry and then to form what she formed, which was the Marine Mammals Working Group. And that group allows people to bring concerns, allows a dedicated space for people in the maritime industry to come and learn from what we're seeing. So, month to month, that working group meets once monthly and we share our most recent information about gray whales.

Josie Slaathaug: 27:07

You know and whales overall, as now we're having the humpbacks come in right. But, to speak to gray whales specifically. To share that information in real time is the only framework that allowed that to be received by the appropriate people who could take those measures, and that's just a huge credit to the work that Kathy has put in for years in the background to make that happen.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 27:33

Oh, now I can see why you said they respected her seat at the table She'd taken the time to put in all that time and create that situation and that they did respect what she had to say. And I also liked what you had to say about the gray whales having individual personalities and not always going to be in the same place or do the same thing, kind of like humans.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 27:59

They are unpredictable, aren't they?

Josie Slaathaug: 28:02

Oh yeah yeah, and we have varying levels of predictability by whale. There are some whales in the Bay that really like one area and they're kind of always there, and then there are some whales that are, you know, metropolitan traveling whales that we can see at any point at any part of the bay, pretty much doing anything. But another thing that we saw that is really interesting we're starting to share this information with colleagues you know further north and I'm happy to share it here is that we saw a lot more social behavior than we had ever seen. So I think that might come along with having had a larger number of whales overall in the bay, but we saw things like them blowing short bubble bursts back and forth. We saw whales that were very, very tightly paired, which we had never seen in the bay. We saw whales touching on surfacing, or one whale was surfacing and we could see another part of a different whale touching the body of that whale. So it was so interesting and I'm reminded why, season to season, as a scientist, you have to grow so much and I have so much to learn, even from just doing the same job or being in the same role year to year, is they really can surprise you. They can do so many different things. We saw a lot of spy hopping this year and chin slapping and that was kind of a rare occurrence for us here.

Josie Slaathaug: 29:29

So you know, we're learning as we go in the infancy stages of this program, really for the gray whale photo ID, and it's been a joy and been really difficult.

Josie Slaathaug: 29:43

You know, it's been a joy to watch them kind of explore new parts of the bay and exhibit these social behaviors and what looks like happily feed with lots of mud blooming out of their mouths. And then it's been very difficult to identify some of these whales that we came to know over the course of what was months in the Bay this year and find that not only is this whale deceased, this whale was struck by a vessel which contributed to its death or caused its death, and also to know, to your point, how much effort was made this year to avoid that problem. Had that effort not been made, I don't know what that number would be. I mean, the number that we have is unreasonably high. And that was, with all these protective measures, all these evasive actions, right. So had that structure not been in place to communicate what we needed out of that community, I think we would have seen a much worse outcome for many of the whales in the bay this year.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 30:47

I agree with that completely. I mean, even though the number is high and we would not like to see any, it is so much better than it would have been if all that effort wasn't put into creating that coordination and collaboration. I am so struck by that, and it's a wonderful thing. Josie, how many whales are recited like year to year have come back? Are we starting to see whales that are making this a stop along the migration?

Josie Slaathaug: 31:21

That is such an interesting question and we're still doing a lot of work to figure that out. Part of my thesis is also comparing the whales that we have come to know here in San Francisco Bay to other known feeding groups. So I'm comparing our entire catalog to both the Pacific Coast feeding group and whales that have entered the Salish Sea and the North Puget Sound, so to the Sounders as well as whales just that have come into that area. What we're seeing here in San Francisco Bay is a very, very low year to year reciting rate, which is really interesting and something that we kind of wouldn't expect. I mean, we have a few visitors that have come back year-to-year. Specifically, we have one whale that is on our Meet the Whales website on the Marine Mammal Center. That page. This whale is named Semicolon after a distinct shape on the whale's right flank.

Josie Slaathaug: 32:21

This whale was first photographed at the Farallon Islands in 2021. The following year, 2022, it was photographed during the big feeding event that Gray Whales had on anchovies that our group has published on at the Pacific up here, so further South than San Francisco Bay, but that same year it was seen inside San Francisco Bay. Then, 2023, we saw it inside the Bay again, 2024, we saw it inside the Bay again and this year, interestingly enough, we saw it inside the Bay for the longest period of time it had been in ever, and then we also photographed it very recently or while we received photographs from the public, which we love all of our public contributors. The Pacifica Whale Spotting Facebook group is so helpful for tagging me in gray whale photos. Knowing that I'm the person doing that, I can't speak highly enough of the folks over there and the pictures that they're able to obtain. They photographed this whale at the Pacific up here. So this is a whale that maybe year to year, sticks around and doesn't complete that full migration.

Josie Slaathaug: 33:29

Its first sighting in 2021 at the Fairlawns was in July and Point Blue that's been at the Fairlawns. Over the years. They've recorded some gray whale sightings year to year that aren't associated with photographs that were in throughout the summer at the Fairlawn Islands. So that tells us that maybe there's some data there to be explored or another study there to be done. On addressing the question are some whales summering there out at the fair lawns? But in terms of the bay, yeah, very low inter-annual reciting rate, which is kind of not what I would have expected. So how do these whales know to come here? What makes them come here? Why some years a bunch and other years not? All of these are questions that we're kind of working on from different angles within our research group and trying to get to the bottom of C.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 34:25

Puget Sound, scott and Tree have brought on as guests both here on this radio show and podcast, as well as the symposium they were talking about earlier. A couple of other guests we've had, and that would be Josh McInnes, a doctorate student up in Victoria, canada, as well as Howie Garrett of the Orca Network, and they really study the orcas and orca behavior. So it's interesting how you're all doing different aspects of this and why, josie, is that so important?

Josie Slaathaug: 35:07

Get a full picture of what the whales are doing here, including how long they're here, if they enter and leave through the Golden Gate Bridge very often or infrequently, what they do while they're here, if they're feeding, their body condition, their health when they're here, the timing of them being here and then where else they're seen. All of these components can build a picture of what does this individual do on a year-to-year. This is a capital breeding species, so a species that relies on a very short window in which it feeds to sustain it for the entire year and relies on that short window for its reproduction viability. And relies on that short window for its reproduction viability. You know, how successful is my pregnancy going to be is determined by how much am I able to eat in this short window of time that I have allocated for that in my migration. So thinking about all of these different components and where they fall along the migration pathway can really give you a full picture of an individual's life history, and through that window you can ask questions about larger environmental drivers that influence the population as a whole.

Josie Slaathaug: 36:30

So is this something that we're seeing on an individual level? Within any population, you will have weaker individuals. Is that the sample that we're getting inside San Francisco Bay? Or is this maybe representative of larger drivers going on in the environment in the Arctic? With the warming and the sea ice change, the prey regime shifting up there to basically prey of less quality, is this influencing, maybe, what these whales are doing, the cost benefit of them completing that entire migration and going through the expenditure of all that energy all the way up north? If the prey is shifting or if the timing of the sea ice retreat is shifting, is that going to change their migration timing? Looking at all of the components that influence what we know about an individual can really help you start to understand what is impacting the population and what is influencing the changes that you're seeing to overall their history.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 37:40

Very well said. That really puts the big picture into focus for us all. I appreciate that. Something interesting right here off our coast in the years 19, 20, and 21, we had mostly juveniles stayed here all summer feeding in the kelp beds right along the coast. We could watch them every single day Just for about those three years. Bill Keener and his wife came out one year and he pointed out to us that they're not just juveniles. There were some full-grown adults that stayed here those summers but, josie, since then none Not any longer Interesting.

Josie Slaathaug: 38:24

Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm interested to see how Bill.

Scott Mercer: 38:25

Keener excited, not any longer interesting.

Josie Slaathaug: 38:26

Yeah, it's so interesting, and you know getting Bill with a camera, getting Bill looking at pretty much any living being, not even just whales. Well really it's fun to be around and just fun to work around and he turned to me.

Scott Mercer: 38:43

he said is it always like this? He?

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 38:46

was so excited.

Scott Mercer: 38:48

We had these big whales going back and forth in front of the up and down the lighthouse peninsula out here.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 38:54

In Pointerina. There's a peninsula, there's a lighthouse out there. Have you been out this way at all?

Josie Slaathaug: 39:00

No, I haven't. It's been on my list for a long time. I would love to come.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 39:04

You have an open invitation anytime. It's a wonderful spot. The lighthouse is on a peninsula that extends about two miles out into the ocean. That's our main observation site and that's where Bill was. He came out and he was just overjoyed with what he was seeing that summer day.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 39:25

Describe a couple of the other places, like Gerstle Cove and the other places that you guys watch.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 39:30

We try to, you know, hit as many different sites along this coast. There's just to the south of us in northern Sonoma County. There's a beautiful state park called Salt Point State Park and within that park also goes out a little bit is Gerstle Cove. We've had success there watching whales different types. We've seen finback whales there. We even saw minky humpbacks feeding there. In later summertime A couple of Bill's dolphins were playing out there A couple of Bill's dolphins were playing out there, yeah, oh so fun.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 40:06

Yeah, Wallala Point Regional Park as a nice vantage point for watching whales. Sometimes we even go to the Mendocino Headlands and see a count from up there. So we try to spread out along this coast and be true to our name of Mendenoma a little bit of. Mendocino and Sonoma.

Josie Slaathaug: 40:27

Yeah, I love that name, Mendenoma. A little bit of Mendocino and Sonoma. Yeah, I love that name, mendenoma, and especially, you know, going to school up at Sonoma State is a good reason. I'm already part of the way up and I've really been thinking about going to areas of that coast, especially during the gray whale migration. Try to see some people going by actually instead of coming into the bay.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 40:47

True, you're in Santa Rosa. You just come over through the river road and come to Jenner and then up the coast.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 40:55

As I said, you have an open invitation to join us anytime.

Josie Slaathaug: 40:59

I will take you up on it. I would love to.

Scott Mercer: 41:02

Can I ask you a couple of behavioral questions? Yeah, veil questions, not people, when you're watching whales in the bay. You mentioned spy hopping. For one thing I think I heard you say that, and we've been watching whales out here now for many thousands of hours I saw a spy hopping galore on the East Coast the decades I was working with humpbacks in the Gulf of Maine. You know, popping up next to the boats and looking at you like they do, like you know it's the only way they can see.

Scott Mercer: 41:28

And but I come out here and I hear about spy hopping. And the last time we did a count was several years ago and a nephew of mine at the University of New Hampshire was in a statistics class and he needed our statistics for a project. So he gladly handed it over to him and at that point we had over 5,000 hours of sitting out there on the cliff. Now we're way over that. We still have not seen a gray whale spy hop. So I hear about it but I haven't seen it. So when do you see them doing that? When a cargo vessel goes by so they can read the Japanese writing on it.

Josie Slaathaug: 42:01

Yeah, I had not seen a gray whale spy hop until this year. So, and I have also spent, you know, thousands of hours looking over the years, so it was a shock to me. To be honest with you, the closest spy hop I saw this year was from quite a distance, but it was unmistakable. I mean it was really like, oh, we saw a blow over there a while ago. So you know, I told one of the interns, keep an eye on that one, we'll try to go over to that one after we finish photographing this one. And all of a sudden I look over and I just see like a you know, big objects kind of up out of the water and then slowly sink back down and I was like that had to be spy hopping. And I like to joke all of the citizen scientists that come to Crissy Field and stand with their camera. They get a photo of spy hopping that's so gorgeous. And they see spy hopping over there.

Josie Slaathaug: 43:07

I have no idea what a gray whale is thinking, what influences the moment it chooses to spy hop. I really really have not even a guess on that one, at least here in the bay, and I think the closest I've come to seeing it in person, off the boat, not from a distance, was definitely this one whale. It has a provisional code for now, before we finish comparing it to our historic catalog, but 2530. And this whale was very skinny. The first time we saw it was one of the skinniest whales I had ever seen, macy, that I would say. Over the course of its time in the Bay we saw it in a few spots that made us very worried, including right outside of the ferry building along the San Francisco waterfront Just maybe the most stressful place to see a gray whale. Sitting here on the boat and watching five different ferries approach and they're all at slow speed because they're coming in to dock. But really, where is that whale going to go? You're thinking, you know.

Josie Slaathaug: 44:02

So we had seen the whale in some hair-raising predicaments, you might say. And the last time we saw it before it was struck and killed by a vessel was jubilus, I think there's no other word. It was paired very tightly with another whale which we had not seen it near any other whales the whole season. It looked visibly better, it looked to be in better body condition. It was blowing bubbles, it was chin slapping lightly, you know, raising its whole rostrum and head out of the water and kind of tapping it down, and I do think it looked at us. I think it, you know, wasn't a spy hop directly in the very vertical sense, but it was raising and lowering a few times in a row in pretty close proximity to the boat while we sat in neutral and photographed it, and it was very close to the other whale and it was covered in mud. It was just clearly a changed whale from the one we had first seen.

Josie Slaathaug: 45:08

And I think about a week to a week and a half later we received a report from a ferry captain of a new gray whale carcass and I saw a photo of it and I just knew immediately that it was that whale.

Josie Slaathaug: 45:23

And that was the saddest one of the whole season for us because it had seemed that that whale was doing better, maybe getting better, whether it was here in the Bay or locally outside, you know, along the coast, and it just had this predisposition that we had seen it in these really difficult areas for a whale to be. So that was a very sad one and the carcass match by photo that I was able to do on that one was actually the markings on its face because it had looked at us the last time we had seen it. So that was one where the emotions ran high here in the office, and especially to just have had that last encounter with it and have had that time with that whale where we really felt a connection, and to know that it was a human-caused mortality and that it maybe would have exited the bay alive had that not happened. Would have exited the bay alive had that not happened.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 46:27

You're listening to the voice of Josie Slothout, who is a cetacean intern at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito and she is doing her master's degree at Sonoma State University. Scott and Tree. Mercer and I are talking with her about the unusually high number of gray whales in the San Francisco Bay this year and near the mouth of the Golden Gate Bridge and, tragically, how so many whales have died recently More than 20 in the area and 15 or 16 which were in the bay itself. So we're talking about the types of things that can be done to prevent more of these from happening in the future. Now back to our conversation and my next question.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 47:18

I'm Leanne Lindsay, and this is Resilient Earth radio and podcast, where we talk about critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking. So let me ask you something that is a very speculative question. That may not be one you can answer either one of you, but, josie, what do you think might be done in the future? In such a busy bay, such a big tourist area, big mariner area, cargo ships, sporting boats, fishing boats, people just getting out to have a good time what do you think some measures might be to in the future, possibly send out some kind of alert that this kind of thing is happening in the Bay again, so that people can really ratchet back their activities.

Josie Slaathaug: 48:11

That's a great question. I think that's something you know our team thinks about constantly. What could we take from this year as lessons to move forward and prepare us for potentially high numbers of gray whales in the bay in the following years? And I think a few things are always in this conversation, but not necessarily the most feasible or realistic on short timescales, which are enacting a slow speed zone throughout the bay. That is not a popular thing to talk about with the maritime industry because that is very disruptive to their entire schedules, their way of being in the Bay right now. So that would be a really large change, a large shift.

Josie Slaathaug: 49:02

I think smaller scale we can talk about, like I said earlier, proactive measures, so education to the maritime community, but also, on smaller scales, to local marinas around the bay. That focuses on before these whales enter. This is roughly the season that you'll see them in. This is behavior that you might expect from different species. Here's safe guidelines for whale viewing from your vessels. We understand that whales are just as exciting for the public to see, if not more, than for us to see. So people really want to support our work but also want to get out there and see some whales.

Josie Slaathaug: 49:46

Well, I think education in this area, the Bay Area broadly, for whale safe viewing, for mariners, has been lacking because there's no historical presence in this way.

Josie Slaathaug: 49:58

So I think in other areas where take Monterey Bay, for example, where even commercial fishermen and the whale watching community is so established because this has been populations that return year after year, to differing extents granted, but as a community that has been understanding that whales are present in this area across time, and that's not a community that exists yet in the Bay, that's not a community knowledge or a depth of public knowledge that exists yet. I think there's lots of work that's very feasible to be done to build that knowledge base within the community, within the public, to move forward and have a year where commercial fishermen understand, when they see a whale, that they're not supposed to approach it, or they understand okay, maybe I've seen one breath, but sometimes it'll be right subsurface and it'll rest for a minute before it takes another breath. I still can't drive over that area, even if I don't see a whale in that area. Still can't drive over that area, even if I don't see a whale in that area. Things like that, small things that the public can digest very easily, even if we don't have another year with a ton of whales, we might in the future.

Josie Slaathaug: 51:16

Things for this population are changing and they're changing very quickly. I think we have an opportunity now to start to build that community and that public knowledge base and support, and I think that we in the Bay Area specifically have a very receptive audience for it. So we just need to put some effort and some time there and continue to do outreach to our communities, which is the most important way to make change on any topic.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 51:42

I like that idea of working with the marinas too, because that's where people put out from, and educating from that point, yes, scott.

Scott Mercer: 51:50

Yeah, the other question I had was John C, a couple of years ago, made the observation that the blue whales didn't seem to be aware of, off of Santa Barbara, of the ships going in and out of there. They're so intent on catching krill. You're seeing whales between the tugboats and the big ships coming in. If the whales seem to be trying to get out of the way or they seem oblivious to it.

Josie Slaathaug: 52:14

Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's very difficult to classify with gray whales because oftentimes we don't see any sort of large reactive measures. Anecdotally, we had a few whales this year that when we first photographed them, did not have a sublethal injury an injury that may not contribute to death necessarily but is evident of some sort of vessel interaction, of a prop mark for example. We saw a few of those this year that then they gained while they were in the bay and what I'll say is those whales were much harder to photograph from our research team after they received that injury. So those whales were very evasive, coming up for just one blow and making some real ground in one direction or quickly changing directions. But overall I don't really notice a pattern among whales and that just goes to individuality.

Josie Slaathaug: 53:14

Again, I think gray whales are so individual, Whales in general are so individual, but what I've seen with gray whales in the bay is not necessarily a pattern of they seem to be very disturbed by the vessels and get out of the way or they seem to be very oblivious.

Josie Slaathaug: 53:30

It seems like there's some of each and overall there's probably a broad spectrum of what they think about it, what they think about different types of vessels, I will say the high-speed ferries travel upwards of 30 knots within the bay. I think that gives the whales no time to think or have a reaction or have a chance to move out of the way. So I would say, and this has been published in literature, looking at risk of different types of vessels in San Francisco Bay for other species specifically, paper, I'm thinking of that modeled risk across the different areas of the bay in terms of thinking about maybe reintroducing sea otters, and they classified ferries as one of the highest risk components just because of that speed and because there is no management in place for the speeds right now. So that's a framework that would have to be built and because of their prevalence throughout the North and the Central Bay.

Scott Mercer: 54:29

On the East Coast. I never got involved with naming the whales. We had such an avalanche of humpbacks every summer. I was just interested in myself and whoever came out on the boats with me to photograph the tales of humpbacks and other. Then we get into finbacks which became a real circus because it's so darn big. But when we moved out here and shifted our focus I did become interested and out here is a much smaller group of working with the whales. So a neighbor and friend or colleague now of ours, sherry Goforth, who has sent some photos down to Bill and up to John and to Ted Cheeseman.

Scott Mercer: 55:04

The first photo she took up here which got me interested in the names and seeing it was possible even from a cliff was a gray whale named Rambo. So Rambo was seen with a calf down in Baja, and then, quickly, rambo became Rambulina. Rambulina, that's right. So that was it.

Josie Slaathaug: 55:24

Well, I'll just say we had a similar occurrence this year, a whale that we had a tiny little white spot, a very dark body, otherwise tiny little white spot, and we called it little lady spot for a while and then that turned into little lady and then it turned into ladybug. So that whale got named ladybug and ladybug did pass and was a male and our world was rocked because we really did perceive female energy from that whale. I just Josie, we really don't know at all the sex of these whales until they're either seen with a calf or they die.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 55:59

Do any mothers and calves go into the bay?

Josie Slaathaug: 56:01

Josie calves go into the bay. Josie, no, we have not photographed a clear mother calf pair or seen one in San Francisco Bay, which is also interesting, but this year very low calf count overall, so I wouldn't really have yeah, wouldn't have expected that they'd be in here.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 56:16

Thank you so much, Josie, for coming on, and thank you, Scott and Tree Scott, for bringing Josie to us.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 56:23

We so appreciate your time, Josie, and what you are doing.

Josie Slaathaug: 56:26

Yeah, thank you for giving me a space to share the work that we've been doing and after such a difficult and taxing year, it's really rewarding to be able to talk with interested people about it and to share more broadly how it went this year.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 56:43

Yeah, we're glad to know that we need to spread that word. We're certainly trying to do that up here, and people here do love their whales. They are concerned and the more they know, the more they'll care and maybe make some changes in their daily lives to help these whales Absolutely.

Josie Slaathaug: 57:01

And this is the 50th anniversary of the largest marine mammal hospital in the world yeah, definitely happy to be a part of it and feel very lucky to work with the people I do thanks again, everybody, thank you thank you for the time .

Scott Mercer: 57:21

Bye.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 57:36

Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth podcast, where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet. Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, and Seastorm Studios Inc, located on the rugged North Sonoma coast of Northern California. I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Allaman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericallaman. com. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, Apple and Amazon Podcasts, iHeartRadio, YouTube, Soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Please support us by subscribing or donating to our cause.