Gulf of California

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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.