This is a great weekend to go whale watching, especially if you live near Monterey Bay. Local tour guides say they’re seeing surprisingly large numbers of humpbacks offshore.
“Right now there’s record numbers of humpback whales feeding in Monterey Bay,” said Nancy Black, who’s been leading whale-watching trips on Monterey Bay for 26 years. She said she’s never seen anything like it. “It’s been going on for over a week.”
There’s a good reason for this: huge runs of anchovies.
An explosion of anchovies means a feast not just for the whales, but for sea lions, brown pelicans and other birds. Black said she’s seen blue whales, too, which is unusual for this time of year.
Wired has more on the whales crowding Monterey Bay:
Humpback whales spend the summer feeding off the California coast. Come November, they’ll start migrating south, to Mexico.