A whale of a record

Researchers approach a western Pacific gray whale for tagging near Sakhalin Island in Russia. U.S. and Russian scientists are tracking rare western Pacific gray whales across the Bering Sea and all the way to Mexico. Picture: Craig Hayslip/OSU Marine Mammal Institute via AP

Researchers approach a western Pacific gray whale for tagging near Sakhalin Island in Russia. U.S. and Russian scientists are tracking rare western Pacific gray whales across the Bering Sea and all the way to Mexico. Picture: Craig Hayslip/OSU Marine Mammal Institute via AP

Published Apr 17, 2015

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London – A female whale has made the longest migration ever recorded by a mammal.

Varvara, a nine-year-old grey the size of a double-decker bus, swam across the Pacific from Russia to Mexico and then back again.

The 14,000-mile journey, completed over five months without food or sleep, has astonished scientists.

Until now they had assumed grey whales migrated relatively short distances from cold feeding waters to their warmer breeding grounds.

But satellite tracking of 35ft, 30-ton Varvara – which means Barbara in Russian – showed she was able to cross the world’s largest ocean at a rate of 90 miles a day.

Her feat beats the previous record of 11,700 miles, achieved by a humpback in 2011.

The Oregon State University researchers said migrating whales do not stop for food.

Daily Mail

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