Gulf of California

Assembled from 12 blocks · 2 evidence · 6 related

1. Story
2. The long, narrow sea between the Baja California peninsula and mainland Mexico, and the winter destination of part of the eastern North Pacific blue whale population. It is used differently from the summer feeding grounds: nursing mothers with calves show a marked preference for the coastal waters around Bahia de Loreto, and females in different reproductive states return to the gulf, so it functions as a wintering and calving area as well as a feeding one. Reported estimates of how many blue whales winter there are of the order of a few hundred out of the wider population, but the figures found in this session came from tourism and general-audience material rather than from a stock assessment. No coordinate is given for the gulf as a whole; the located anchor is the Loreto Bay park inside it.
3. Knowledge
4. Gulf of California
5. Connections
6. Eastern North Pacific Blue Whale Migration
7. Bahia de Loreto National Park
8. Bahia de Loreto National Park is established
9. Tagged whales confirm the Gulf of California as a wintering ground
10. Evidence
11. The Gulf of California is a winter, calving and feeding area for northeastern Pacific blue whales that feed off California in summer; nursing mothers and calves show a particular preference for the coastal waters of Bahia de Loreto National Park, and females in different reproductive states return to the gulf. The park was established on 19 July 1996, covers 206,580.75 hectares of which about 88 percent is sea surface, and takes in the islands of Coronados, Del Carmen, Danzante, Montserrat and Santa Catalina. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to these sources; none was fetched.
12. Transmitters were attached to 171 blue whales off California and in the Gulf of California between 1993 and 2008; a related analysis used 159 Argos tags deployed mainly off California in late summer between 1993 and 2007, of which 92 tracks exceeded seven days. Tagged whales moved south in winter to Baja California, the Gulf of California and waters at and west of the Costa Rica Dome; five whales tagged in 1999 wintered in the Gulf of California, identifying it as a wintering ground. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to these sources; neither the institute page nor the preprint could be fetched.