As blue whales begin to show off Southern California, a well-known photographer has shared a 2016 drone image that reveals the immense size of the planet’s largest creatures.
The accompanying image, captured by Mark Girardeau for Newport Whales, shows a blue whale dwarfing a large passenger vessel.
“The boat pictured is called Nautilus and is 72’ long,” Girardeau explained on Instagram. “That must mean the whale is like 140’ long right?
“Actually, the largest blue whale ever documented off California is around 90’ but due to the perspective of the photo, the whale just appears larger…. In this photo, there were about 85 [people] onboard and the whale is likely around 80’ long.”
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Endangered blue whales, which number between 10,000 and 25,000 globally, can weigh more than 200 tons. They’re larger than all known dinosaurs.
They migrate into California waters beginning in late spring or early summer and spend several months, venturing as far north as Alaska, gorging on shrimp-like krill. (A single whale can devour more than 4 tons of krill per day.)
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Girardeau’s image provides a unique perspective because people on boats typically see only small portions of blue whales as they surface to breathe.
This week, first-of-season blue whale sightings were logged by Legacy Whale Watch in San Diego, and San Diego Whale Watch.
“We started our adventure heading straight west from Mission Bay as we had heard whispers of something big waiting out there for us,” San Diego Whale Watch reported Friday via Facebook. “We were quickly rewarded by sighting not just one – but three blue whales!”
Also on Friday, a blue whale was spotted off Point Vicente in Los Angeles County, by volunteers with the Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project.
The blue whale season for whale-watching operations in Southern California coincides with the waning weeks of the northbound gray whale migration.