Adored whale skips migration to Mexico, snacks on shrimp in Puget Sound instead
A beloved whale ditched his migration to Mexico and went to Washington’s Puget Sound months early to snack on shrimp, a whale group said.
Little Patch was spotted and identified Dec. 11 in the Saratoga Passage, which is between Whidbey Island and Camano Island, the Orca Network said in a Facebook post.
It marks the fifth year in a row he has skipped his journey south to warmer waters, the nonprofit said.
He’s part of the North Puget Sound gray whales, nicknamed the “Sounders.” He was first seen in 1991 and was named after the small white patch on his left side, McClatchy News reported.
The Sounders make up about a dozen whales that migrate north from the Baja California peninsula in Mexico to the Bering Sea off Alaska, according to the Puget Sound Express and the Cascadia Research Collective.
Gray whales travel 10,000 miles every year, making their migration the longest of any mammal in the world, The Bellingham Herald reported.
These whales make a “detour” during this long journey and stop at the Salish Sea off Victoria, British Columbia, to feed on ghost shrimp. Most of them show up in the Puget Sound in March, Orca Network said in a release.
But not Little Patch.
“We all hope (Little Patch) is finding plenty of food here and will be joined by other Sounders over the next few months,” Orca Network said in the Facebook post.
The whales will feed until about May off Washington and then continue north to the Bering and Chukchi seas, where they stay for the summer months, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Then they move back south in mid-October, and the cycle repeats, wildlife officials said.
This story was originally published December 13, 2024 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Adored whale skips migration to Mexico, snacks on shrimp in Puget Sound instead."
