Gray whales are long-distance travelers, feeding in the far north and breeding in the tropics. Every year gray whales migrate more than 12,000 miles. Because they nearly always travel in sight of land, these whales are easy to watch.
Gray whales are a fairly common sight along the west coast of North America. In spring and fall, thousands of people travel there every year to see gray whales pass by on their long migrations. However, fifty years ago,these huge mammals were almost extinct. They had been hunted for hundreds of years for meat and oil. The gray whale population had fallen to just a few thousand
