Paper short abstract:

This presentation will explore the near-extinction, recovery, and recent decline of eastern Pacific gray whales since 1840. In addition to archival and oral sources, it will feature an animated digital map to examine the shared history and future of gray whales and people in the North Pacific.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation will explore the shared history and intertwined future of gray whales and people in the Anthropocene. Hunted up and down the Pacific Coast of North America beginning in the 1840s, eastern Pacific (or “California”) gray whales seemed on their way to extinction by the early twentieth century. But after 1945, despite rising human impacts on their migration route in the form of commercial traffic, military infrastructure, and offshore oil drilling, this most coastal of great whale populations made a remarkable recovery. By the 1970s, the species had become an icon of ecological recovery and international tourism, spurring excitement around the promise of “friendly whale” encounters in the lagoons of Baja California. In the process, the shifting interaction between gray whales and people transformed cultural and spatial relations, bringing the species into the imagined community of the transnational Pacific Coast. Yet this environmental success story remained fragile. By the late 2010s, the impact of climate change on the species’ historic recovery had raised a range of questions, including concerns over the revival of Indigenous whaling of gray whales. In addition to drawing upon archival and oral history sources, this presentation will feature an animated digital map that juxtaposes human and gray whale history since 1840. In doing so, it will assess the possibilities and limitations of marine wildlife recovery in the age of the Anthropocene.