| Summary: | Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus, Lilljeborg) migrate north each spring to feeding grounds, mainly in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Regularly a few individuals travel as far northeast as Point Barrow, Alaska, and a few records have been made of sightings along the Alaska Beaufort Sea coast as far east as Barter Island . During summer 1980, three sightings of gray whales were made in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, well east of any previously recorded . All were in open water, well south of the pack ice front. . These sightings constitute an eastward extension of the known range of the gray whale by 575 km. . If these individuals migrated north along the coast from Baja California, Mexico, where the largest winter concentrations occur . [and] If they returned successfully to that wintering area, they swam a round-trip distance of 20,400 km in 9.5 to 11 months. This would be one of the longest known migrations of any mammal species.Key words: gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, cetacean, marine mammal, migration, Beaufort Sea
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