Grays and the Bay

For several months every year, people go hunting for whales in the Monterey Bay. They look for a broad back, a tall spout, a flipped fluke. But that’s all they do, just look—and maybe take pictures.

It wasn’t always that way. In the 1800s, when people went hunting for whales in Monterey, they were looking to turn them into whale oil.

Over centuries—if not millennia—gray whales have shared a somewhat checkered history with the Monterey Bay, and in Gray Whales, the new edition of a classic book, authors Alan Baldridge and David G. Gordon give all the details, along with the latest research, fascinating facts and stunning photographs and illustrations.