They feed primarily during the summer months of long daylight hours in the cold Arctic waters of the Bering and Chukchi seas. A. Gray whales are the only bottom feeding whales. To feed, a whale dives to the bottom, rolls on its side and gulps mouthfuls of mud from the bottom. As the whale closes its mouth, water and sediments squirt out through the baleen plates. This leaves the amphipods stuck to the baleen inside their mouths.
Whales then use their tongues to loosen the amphipods from the baleen, and swallow.
A. Baleen whales have a series of 130-180 fringed, overlapping baleen plates hanging like curtains from each side of the upper jaw where teeth might otherwise be found. Baleen is made of a fingernail-like material called keratin. Like giant combs, baleen plates filter water out and trap food in. A. Not all. Some individual gray whales are found year round on the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California.