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45 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, January 27, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend December 23, 2004 Volunteers to help people spot migrating whales By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Gray whales are making their winter migration to Mexico, and whale-lovers will man 28 sites along the Oregon Coast next week to help people spot them. Volunteers through the Whale Watching Spoken Here program will be at seven points in Southern Oregon and one spot in Crescent City, Calif. The volunteers will be at the whale-spotting sites from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday through Jan. 2. Whale-watchers will be at Shore Acres State Park near Charleston and the Face Rock Wayside in southern Coos County. In Curry County, volunteers will be at the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, Battle Rock Wayfinding Point, Cape Sebastian, Cape Ferrelo and Harris Beach State Park. Volunteers also will be at the Ninth Street Beach in Crescent City. Advertisement More than 20,000 gray whales averaging about 30 tons each are expected to make their annual move south from their Alaska summer feeding grounds to their winter mating and birthing areas off Baja California. The round-trip migration by the gray whales is one of the longest of any mammal, covering between 8,500 to 11,000 miles. The whale-watching program is organized by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department as a way of helping Oregonians catch a glimpse of the massive animals’ migration. Last year, volunteers helped nearly 13,000 visitors spot 848 whales off the Oregon Coast during the peak of their migration. The highest whale count during the winter event since record-keeping began 17 years ago was 3,152 in 1994-95. The highest number of visitors was more than 19,000 in 2000-01. State parks officials suggest the following tips to help spot whales from land: Bring binoculars, warm clothes, comfortable shoes and rain gear. Even on sunny days, the coastal winds blow cold. Get high for a bird's-eye view, usually from tall cliffs and overlooks along Highway 101. Whales can be a few hundred yards to eight miles offshore. Scan an inch below the horizon for spouts, which are sprays of water 15 feet high. The spouts can sometimes be heart-shaped. Gray whales usually blow three spouts to gather air before diving, called sounding. Whales will stay underwater five to 20 minutes before reappearing for more breaths. They travel about 5 mph, so look south from the last place you spied a spout. Whales typically travel in pods of three or more, sometimes stopping to frolic and mate (usually involving some thrashing and slow rolls on the surface). Early morning is best because the winds tend to be light and the ocean calm, and you won't be looking into the western sun. Oregonians can offer the hunters in their family a shot at an experience of a lifetime and solve some stocking-stuffer dilemmas at the same time. Oregon’s Access and Habitat Program is selling raffle tickets for nine deer and elk tags. The tags mirror similar ones auctioned to the highest bidders at various hunting conventions in the West. The raffle hunts for 2005 include southeast Oregon deer, Central Oregon deer, northeast Oregon elk, high-desert elk, Western Oregon elk, statewide elk and a statewide combination deer and elk hunt. Tag-winners will be able to hunt Sept. 1 through Nov. 30 in large geographic areas. Ticket costs decrease on a sliding scale based on the number purchased. For instance, deer-hunt tickets cost $4 apiece, or $11 for six on up to $101 for 100. Elk-hunt tickets cost $6 apiece or $21 for six on up to $101 for 40. The statewide combination hunt tickets cost $11 for one and $31 for six on up to $151 for 40. Packages of up to 15 tickets can be bought at any point-of-sale license outlet, while larger packages have to be bought through the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s headquarters in Salem. The winning tickets will be drawn at the Oregon Hunters Association’s state convention June 4 in Seaside. All money raised from the raffle is distributed through grants to individual and corporate landowners, conservation groups and others to improve wildlife habitat and hunter-access projects in Oregon. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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