Whales May Change Color with Age, Stress

Can whales change color due to age, illness and/or stress? Marine biologist and noted whale expert Carrie Newell suspects they might. 

Since 1992, Newell has been documenting the comings and goings of gray whales at Depoe Bay, Oregon. A small population of about 70 gray whales travels to the bay each summer to forage, instead of making the usual longer journey to Alaska.

Over the years, Newell has come to know each and every whale, based on their unique physical characteristics and behaviors. Virtually all of the whales suffer from human-caused injuries. For example, there's "Rambolina," with her distinctive back scars caused by a boat propeller. "Football" was also slashed by a boat propeller, which left behind scars shaped like football laces on its upper back.

It is hard to miss Scarback, a female that was struck by an exploding harpoon in the mid 1980's.

(Credit for all images: Carrie Newell)

"It appears that the harpoon went in on the left and blew up as it was leaving the right side," according to Newell. "The orange coloration of the scar is from whale lice—a crustacean that eats dead skin, keeping the wound infection free."

This process might look rather disgusting to us, but Scarback has been going strong these past 25 some years. At least four calves have been observed with her, and she appears to be a good mother, patiently teaching her calves to feed on mysid shrimp.

Photographs of her tail flukes, however, suggest that Scarback is "going gray," Newell told me. In this case, since the whale is gray to begin with, the color change is more from dark gray to white.

Newell doesn't believe that the white is caused by some sort of bacterial growth, barnacle scarring or other more external source.

"A similar phenomenon occurs in humans and animals as they lose pigmentation," she explained. "We may have to rethink our photo identifying system of certain whales if this is a common occurrence in gray whales and other whale species."

Some whales are albino, due to a disorder associated with partial or complete lack of melanin, the pigment that gives color to skin and hair. (Check out this photo of Moby, an albino whale.)

I recently learned that cats and other mammals can also have their fur and skin turn color, usually due to health issues. Inflammatory bowel disease in felines, for example, can result in reduced absorption of certain proteins and vitamins, causing the cat's coat to develop a reddish discoloration.

But I'll be curious to see how Scarback's appearance will further change, if she hopefully continues to remain strong and can make her annual trip to Oregon.

To see Scarback and the other Depoe Bay whales in person, I highly recommend Newell's Whale Research EcoExcursions. She's been on the famed Cousteau expedition team and has intimate knowledge of all the whales she's come to regard as her friends.

Newell is also the author of A Guide to Summer Resident Gray Whales Along the Oregon Coast (Nature Unlimited Ink), now in its third edition. It's hard to put down the book, because each page features multiple photographs of the whales, illustrating their injuries, skin barnacles, quirks, families and more.