Climate change: threat to the gray whale

Abstract

 Climate change is having effects in areas such as the Arctic Ocean, an important site for a large number of species and oceanographic processes. The increase in temperature and melting of ocean ice is having effects such as increased productivity in the water column and a decrease in nutrients from the seabed. One of the species most impacted by these changes is the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), which feeds during the summer months on small invertebrates from the Arctic seabed and during the winter months makes one of the largest migrations to the lagoons of reproduction in the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico. Associated with a lack of food, as of 2019 an Unusual Mortality Event of the gray whale was reported, in which, in addition to stranded organisms, an increased number of whales with a poor nutritional condition and a decrease in the number of calves. In this paper we describe the effects that climate change is having on the gray whale at a global level, and we show the results of the studies carried out by the Programa de Investigación de Mamíferos Marinos of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur.