Are There Gray Whales in the Atlantic? Lost Whales Return

Did gray whales live in the Atlantic?

Yes. Today the gray whale is found only in the North Pacific, but bones dug up from beaches, marshes and old seabeds show that it once lived along the coasts of both Europe and eastern North America. Radiocarbon-dated remains have been found in England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, and on the American side from New York to Florida.

In fact, the species was first scientifically described from an Atlantic specimen. In 1861 the Swedish zoologist Wilhelm Lilljeborg described it from bones found on the Baltic coast of Sweden, although he took it for a kind of rorqual. At the time, nobody realized that the same whale was still swimming off California. Only in the 1930s did scientists confirm that the Atlantic bones and the living Pacific whales were the same species.

Atlantic gray whales probably behaved much like Pacific ones, migrating between feeding grounds in the north and shallow coastal waters for calving. Remains suggest they used areas such as the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands and Germany, the Baltic and, on the American side, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the sounds of the Carolinas. A 2018 study of bones from Roman-era sites around the Strait of Gibraltar found that some came from gray whales, suggesting they also reached the Mediterranean region.

When did Atlantic gray whales disappear?

The dates are not settled, but the evidence points to a slow disappearance. In Europe, gray whale bones are fairly common at archaeological sites until the Middle Ages, and a 2025 study of dated remains concluded that the eastern Atlantic population died out around the 12th to 14th centuries. Icelandic writings from the 1600s describe a coastal whale called the sandlægja, or “sand-lier,” which some experts think was the gray whale, although this identification is uncertain.

On the western side, the latest dated bones come from the late 1600s. Early New England whalers described a “scrag whale” with a row of knobs instead of a dorsal fin, which matches a gray whale well, and settlers on Nantucket are reported to have killed one before 1672. By the early 1700s, the western Atlantic population seems to have vanished.

Why did gray whales vanish from the Atlantic?

Nobody knows for sure, and several causes probably combined. Gray whales live close to shore and calve in shallow bays, which made them easy targets for early whalers using small boats. Medieval whaling in Europe and shore whaling in colonial New England both coincided with their decline.

Climate may have played a part too. The end of the Medieval Warm Period and the colder centuries that followed could have changed sea ice and food supplies in the north. Atlantic populations may also have been small to begin with, which would have made them more vulnerable to hunting.

Gray whales seen in the Atlantic since 2010

After centuries of absence, gray whales have started to appear in the Atlantic again, always as lone individuals.

Photographs showed that the Israeli and Namibian whales were different individuals. The Florida and Nantucket sightings may have involved the same whale. None of these wanderers is known to have found a mate.

How did Pacific gray whales reach the Atlantic?

The most likely route is through the Arctic Ocean, along the Northwest Passage north of Canada. Eastern Pacific gray whales spend summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, at the western end of the passage, and as Arctic sea ice has shrunk, open water has stretched farther east in late summer. A whale following feeding areas eastward could end up in the North Atlantic. The alternative, swimming around South America, would mean a much longer journey through waters gray whales are not known to use.

This has happened before. A 2015 study of DNA from ancient gray whale bones found that whales moved between the Pacific and the Atlantic several times over the past 100,000 years or so, during warm periods when the Bering Strait was open and Arctic ice was reduced. Today’s wanderers may be the start of another such wave, or simply lost individuals.

Could gray whales return to the Atlantic?

It is possible but far from certain. To form a new population, several males and females would have to arrive, find enough of the bottom-living food they need, and breed. Gray whales are long-lived and reproduce slowly, so any recolonization would take a very long time. Meanwhile the eastern Pacific population itself has declined since 2016, which makes surplus wanderers less likely.

In 2005, two conservation biologists even proposed flying gray whales from the Pacific to Britain to restore the lost population, but the idea was never carried out. For now, the only way to see gray whales is in the Pacific, where they migrate along the west coast of North America; see How far do gray whales migrate? The North Atlantic’s other great coastal whale, the North Atlantic right whale, survived whaling but remains critically endangered.