(Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 24 January 2011) -- ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A highly endangered whale that spends summers in Russian waters has crossed from the Bering Sea into the Gulf of Alaska. U.S. and Russia researchers have tracked the 13-year-old male western Pacific gray whale from the Bering Sea, through the Aleutian Islands into the Gulf of Alaska.

Bruce Mate of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute says the whale is on a route for western gray whales that has never before been documented. Researchers have been tracking the whale since they tagged it off Russia's Sakhalin Island on Oct. 4. Just 130 of the animals remain. They spend summers at the south end of the Sea of Okhotsk but little is known of their winter habits.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Research