Thirty Humpbacks Lunge Feeding Across Monterey Bay

Our three excursions aboard Sanctuary today encountered a highly active group of approximately thirty humpback whales scattered throughout Monterey Bay. Despite a persistent light chop, the whales made their presence known immediately, with multiple individuals engaging in dramatic horizontal lunge feeding across the surface.

This horizontal lunge feeding is a highly coordinated foraging strategy. The whales target dense schools of Northern anchovies, accelerating from below and breaking the surface horizontally with their mouths agape, engulfing thousands of fish in a single mouthful. Between these feeding bouts, we also observed several full-body breaches and repetitive tail slaps, which are often used as acoustic signals to communicate over distances or to help herd the bait fish.

The activity remained consistent across our morning, mid-day, and afternoon trips. Having thirty individuals distributed widely indicates a rich concentration of bait throughout the bay, drawing the whales in from the deeper canyon edges to feed closer to the surface.

Watching these massive baleen whales coordinate their feeding in the shallow surface waters is a steady reminder of Monterey Bay's immense biological productivity during the summer months.