Gray whales are split into two distinct populations, and their conservation status depends entirely on which one you’re talking about. The western North Pacific population, which feeds off the coast of Russia, is listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act with only an estimated 220 to 270 individuals. The eastern North Pacific population, the one most people see on whale-watching trips along the California coast, was removed from the endangered species list in 1994 after a successful recovery. But that larger population is now declining again, and recent trends have raised fresh concerns.
Two Populations, Two Very Different Stories
Gray whales in the Pacific Ocean exist as two separate groups that don’t significantly mix. The eastern population migrates between breeding lagoons in Baja California, Mexico, and summer feeding grounds in the Arctic seas off Alaska. The western population feeds during summer off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East and has a less well-understood migration route.
The eastern population was the conservation success story. After being hunted nearly to extinction by commercial whaling, it rebounded steadily through the 20th century. By 1994, NOAA determined it had recovered to near its original population size and was no longer in danger of extinction, making it one of the first marine mammals to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act.
The western population never had that comeback. As of 2020, researchers using photo identification and genetic data estimated only 220 to 270 whales (not counting calves) were regularly feeding in their summer habitat. That number has more than doubled since the early 2000s, which is encouraging, but the population remains critically small. It is still listed as endangered under the ESA and classified as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Both populations are also listed under Appendix I of CITES, which prohibits international commercial trade.
The Eastern Population Is Shrinking Again
Although the eastern gray whale is not officially endangered, its numbers have dropped significantly in recent years. The most recent population estimate, for the 2024/2025 season, placed the population between 11,700 and 14,450 whales. That was the third lowest count in the entire monitoring record.
Much of this decline traces back to an Unusual Mortality Event that NOAA tracked from 2019 to 2023. During that period, gray whales stranded dead along the West Coast in alarming numbers. Scientists attributed the die-off to ecosystem changes in the whales’ Arctic and Subarctic feeding grounds, which led to widespread malnutrition, lower birth rates, and higher death rates. Even after that event officially ended, strandings have continued to climb: 47 gray whales stranded dead on the U.S. West Coast so far in 2025, up from 31 the previous year and 44 in 2023.
Calf production tells a similar story. In 2024, researchers counting northbound mother-calf pairs from a monitoring station on the central California coast estimated only about 221 pairs, close to the record low set in 2022. Fewer calves means slower recovery, even if adult mortality stabilizes.
Arctic Warming Is Changing Their Food Supply
Gray whales are bottom feeders. They dive to the seafloor in the shallow basins of the Bering and Chukchi seas and scoop up small crustaceans called amphipods, which live in the sediment. One group of these amphipods, tube-building species that are especially rich in fat, historically dominated these Arctic feeding grounds and formed the core of the gray whale diet.
Climate change is reshaping that food web from the ground up. As Arctic sea ice retreats earlier in spring and returns later in autumn, the water stays open longer. That allows stronger ocean currents to sweep across the shallow sea floor, washing away the fine-grained sediment these fat-rich amphipods need to build their tubes. What replaces them are smaller, lower-fat amphipod species that thrive in coarser sediment. So even though the total number of amphipods may remain steady or even increase, the overall nutritional value available to gray whales has dropped. The prey is less calorie-dense, and whales have to work harder for less energy in return.
A 2024 study published in Science described this as a “boom-bust” cycle tied to changing Arctic conditions. Less ice means less organic carbon settling to the seafloor, which means less habitat for the prey species gray whales depend on most. This is not a temporary fluctuation. As the Arctic continues warming, the conditions favoring high-quality whale food are becoming less common.
What Protections Are Currently in Place
All gray whales, regardless of population, are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to hunt, harass, or kill them in U.S. waters. The western population carries additional protections as an endangered species under the ESA, which requires federal agencies to avoid actions that could further jeopardize its survival. International trade in gray whale products is banned under CITES.
For the eastern population, the lack of an endangered listing means it doesn’t receive the same level of federal protection. If the population continues to decline, a re-listing petition could be filed, but no such action is currently underway. For now, the eastern stock sits in an uncomfortable middle ground: no longer endangered on paper, but trending in a direction that has biologists paying close attention.
Gray Whales Face a Pattern of Repeated Declines
Gray whales have gone through population swings before. They nearly disappeared during the whaling era, recovered over decades of protection, and then experienced periodic die-offs linked to food availability. What makes the current situation different is the underlying cause. Previous declines were followed by rebounds because the Arctic ecosystem eventually cycled back to favorable conditions. Now, with warming fundamentally altering the seafloor habitat that supports their prey, the recovery pathway is less certain.
The western population remains in genuine peril, with numbers so small that a single bad year could undo decades of slow growth. The eastern population is not endangered by legal definition, but it is smaller than it has been in decades, producing fewer calves, and losing animals at an elevated rate. Whether that qualifies as “endangered” depends on whether you mean the legal term or the common sense one. By either measure, gray whales are a species worth watching closely.