Lunge-Feeding Humpback Whales and Common Dolphins off Moss Landing

Calm surface conditions outside Moss Landing gave us an exceptional look at multi-species foraging this morning aboard Ocean Spirit. A core group of six to eight humpback whales worked in tight, synchronized coordination, executing repeated vertical lunges through dense surface schools of anchovy while thousands of baitfish broke the surface to escape.

Hundreds of California sea lions and seabirds—predominantly Brandt’s cormorants, common murres, and brown pelicans—flocked directly over the bait balls, taking advantage of the fish driven upward by the whales below. Across the broader area, an estimated fifty humpbacks were distributed over the rich feeding grounds near the canyon head.

Working three to four miles further to the west, the feeding activity shifted toward offshore cetaceans. An expansive aggregation of long-beaked common dolphins was actively working separate anchovy schools across the swell, and we crossed paths with a pod of twenty blunt-headed Risso’s dolphins traveling through the sector. Two northern fur seals were also observed resting at the surface.

It was a clean demonstration of Monterey Bay's autumn productivity, where concentrated forage fish reliably bring baleen whales, delphinids, and pinnipeds into the same dynamic feeding corridor.