Oregon Public Broadcasting

This winter, researchers from Oregon State University are using surveyors' tools to chart the gray whale migration off the Northwest Coast. The goal: to learn if the migration paths run right through the planned locations of wave energy parks.  Correspondent Tom Banse has more.

From December to this May, spotters are positioned at the Yaquina Head lighthouse on the central Oregon Coast.  When they see a whale, they try to get a fix on its distance offshore. 

Researcher Joel Ortega says the southbound migration of gray whales has more-or-less passed.

Joel Ortega: “What we have seen this season so far is that most of the whales are migrating between 6 and 10 kilometers away from the coast.”

That finding is encouraging for wave energy developers, because their electric generators are planned for closer in.  But Ortega cautions against celebrating too soon.

Joel Ortega: “We know that the gray whales in this part of the Oregon coast usually travel away from the coast on the southward migration. When they come back north to Alaska, they come closer to the shoreline.”

And that could spell trouble.  A spokesman for Finavera Renewables says the power plant developer would not want to put wave energy generators directly in the path of whales.  That company has plans at Makah Bay, Washington, Coos Bay, Oregon and Eureka, California that will require further study. 

Online:

Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute

Finavera Renewables