Whales swim into a school of krill or small fish with their mouths open. They take in hundreds of gallons of water, close their mouths and squirt the water through the baleen. The baleen traps the krill and other small animals and the whale swallows them. A single whale can eat several tons of krill a day. Cold waters in the North and South Atlantic Ocean and the North and South Pacific have many schools of krill and small fish.
Whales like to feed in the cold oceans where there is an abundance of their favorite food.
Some whales are known to migrate into warm waters to bear their calves. The migration of the gray whale is well known. They travel thousands of miles in the Pacific Ocean from Alaska down the west coast of the United States to the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, where they bear their young. In the summer, right whales are found in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy. In the winter, right whales are found with calves near the Georgia and Florida coasts.