The migratory destinations of humpback whales that feed off California, Ore
gon and Washington were determined using photo-identification. Fluke photog
raphs of 594 individuals were taken between 1981 and 1992 and compared to c
ollections from 9 wintering regions in the North Pacific: Ogasawara (162) a
nd Okinawa (17) islands of Japan; the Big Island and Maul (634 for both) an
d Kauai (384) of Hawaii; the Revillagigedo Archipelago (450), the mainland
coast (383) and Baja Peninsula (471) of Mexico; and Central America (31). A
total of 160 matches were found to 6 central and eastern North Pacific win
tering regions, with most from Central America, Baja, and mainland Mexico.
Of whales identified off Central America, 84% were resighted off California
-Washington; this high rate of interchange suggests that whales in these tr
opical waters appear to be comprised entirely of animals from the Californi
a-Washington feeding aggregation. Humpback whales seen off Central America
were resighted disproportionately off southern California while those from
mainland Mexico tended to be seen off northern California-Washington. From
157 same-season migratory transits documented, the shortest were 29 d to Ba
ja and 56 d to Costa Rica and the longest distance was 5322 km. Of the Cali
fornia-Washington whales with known sex, the proportion of males identified
at a wintering region was significantly higher than females (2.2:1, p < 0.
05).