Do you remember how excited people were once over some whales trapped in the ice in Alaska and how happy an event it was when the hard work of kind people freed them? These were gray whales, found only in the Pacific Ocean from the Arctic to Mexico and a small number near Korea.
There are many whale species throughout the world's oceans. The largest is the blue whale, with some as long as 100 feet and weighing about 100 tons. The smallest is the Orca, or killer, whale. Between the two sizes is the gray species. It is about half the size of the blue, but is still very large, as some reach 50 feet in length and weigh nearly 50 tons.
The grays are one of several species known as baleen whales, because of the baleen (or whalebone) plates hanging down in their mouths from the upper jaw. These plates are actually hairs pressed into long, narrow, plastic-like shapes that act as filters when the whale is feeding. To eat, they push their open mouths through a muddy ocean bottom, scooping up mud and whatever food is hidden in it-mostly a mixture called plankton (small sea animals and plants).
Closing their mouths on these big bites, the mud is filtered out in big clouds and the food portion is held back by the baleen sieve for swallowing. This is another example of the wonders of God's creation, for the throat of the gray whale is not big enough to swallow large pieces of food, nor does it have any teeth to chew with. The baleen sieve takes care of this perfectly, and the whales get all the food they need this way. Of course, the Creator could have made them with large throats and teeth, but we often see the unusual in creation, which tells of His delight in creating a great variety of living things. The gray whale is just another example of His wonderful creativity.
These whales spend the summer months feeding on this nutritious food in the northern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Alaska, up beyond the Aleutian Islands and on into the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska. But in winter those areas are covered with heavy layers of ice and icebergs, and the whales, which cannot survive without coming up frequently for air, would not be able to live beneath that frozen cover.
Because of this they migrate-south in the fall and north in the spring. When they return north there are many more, because a great number of little ones are born while they are in the warm southern waters. We will look in more detail at these migrations in the next page.