A blue whale, the world’s largest mammal, made an early appearance off the coast on Thursday, March 28, off Newport Beach. (Photo courtesy of Taylor Thorne/Newport Coastal Adventure)

A blue whale, the world’s largest mammal, made an early appearance off the coast on Thursday, March 28, off Newport Beach. (Photo courtesy of Alex Shaw/Newport Coastal Adventure)

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A blue whale, the world’s largest mammal, made an early appearance off the coast on Thursday, March 28, off Newport Beach. (Photo courtesy of Alex Shaw/Newport Coastal Adventure)

A blue whale, the world’s largest mammal, made an early appearance off the coast on Thursday, March 28, off Newport Beach. (Photo courtesy of Kristen Campbell/Davey’s Locker)



Maybe the blue whale was lost. Or perhaps it was searching for food.

A 60-foot-long blue whale showed up unexpectedly on Thursday morning, March 28, one mile off the Newport Beach coastline and later in the day off Long Beach, an early appearance for the world’s largest mammal, which typically stays away until closer to summer.

“It was also really close to shore, in the same range as gray whales,” said Newport Coastal Adventure captain Alex Shaw.

While gray whales have a predictable migration, with most passing Southern California on their way back to Alaska after spending winter in warm waters off Mexico, it’s anyone’s guess when, or if, the blue behemoths will show up.

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And an early sighting has eco-tour operators hoping for a healthy blue whale season.

Two decades ago, it would have been big news if a blue whale was spotted along the Southern California coastline.

Prior to the mid-2000s, whale-watchers would have to trek up to the Channel Islands or Monterey to get a glimpse of sleek-bodied blue whales after they had spent winter months off Costa Rica and Mexico. In the late ’90s, there were some years with only a dozen or so sightings.

But then, likely due to finding food off the coast, the number surged, prompting a wave of whale-watching businesses to open or expand their operations year-round.

By 2008, about 130 blue whales were spotted, then 291 the following year, according to Dana Wharf Whale Watching logs. In 2011, there was a surge of blue whales nearly every day during the summer — a total of 752 sightings, according to the Dana Wharf logs.

The water changed, however, when El Nino showed up. The food disappeared — and so did the whales. According to Dana Wharf logs, sightings dropped from just over 400 in 2014 to a little more than 100 in 2016. In 2017, there were only about 40 blue whale sightings.

Last year, there was a new resurgence, with sightings up to 169, according to Dana Wharf logs, with the first sighting in May.

Thursday’s sighting was likely of a young whale. It was heading northbound and later in the afternoon spotted by Harbor Breeze Cruises out of Long Beach.

“It was very friendly, came up near the boat quite a few times,” Shaw said. “It rolled around a couple of times, unusual behavior for blue whales. It was just very playful.”

Erik Combs, a captain on Harbor Breeze Cruises, said they usually see a few early “scouts” every year and it seems like there is plenty of krill in the area, with a couple of fin whales feeding off Point Fermin the past few days.

The last early sighting of blue whales by Harbor Breeze boats was April 7, 2017.

The mammoth mammals – whose bodies can reach up to 100 feet long – swam the ocean in great numbers in the late 1800s, with an estimated 200,000-plus, before mankind hunted them to near extinction for valuable oil and meat.

Now protected, their population is rebounding, with the global estimate at about 11,000; about 2,000 of those are living and feeding in Southern California waters.