Blue whales are commonly seen in the north east pacific, traveling from the Alaskan Gulf until the warmer waters of the Costa Rica Dome. Their population rapidly dropped due to commercial whaling. Although there are groups and advocates like the International Whaling Commission who help protect them, their population is still at a terribly low number.
There are about 10,000 blue whales left and around 2,500 of them spend some time in the waters of the U.S. west coast. To find out which areas they usually stay and feed in, a team from Oregon State University tagged 171 of the blue whales with transmitters that they’ve been using to track their movements for the past 15 years.
Knowing where these whales stay when they’re in the west coast can help them reduce any accidents with ships that are also crossing the Pacific in the same route.
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