Flex the traveling Russian whale approaches his Eastern Pacific kin

Flex, the Western Pacific gray whale that summers with others of his endangered species off Russia and may or may not be on an unprecedented tour of the North Pacific Ocean, was last reported just a few miles off the Northern California coast. He first got wide attention in January when he set off across the Bering Sea and rounded Alaska's Pribilof Islands before turning south. The Victoria (B.C.) Times-Colonist reports Flex is now more or less following the migration route of Eastern Pacific gray whales, but he's aloof, staying farther offshore than they do. The reason for uncertainty about Flex's uniqueness is that researchers have never tracked a Western Pacific gray so extensively.

"He's 20 to 25 kilometers offshore and moving at 6.6 kilometers an hour," said Bruce Mate, director of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute, who helped tag Flex.

Eastern gray whales usually travel 10 to 16 kilometers from shore.

Flex has caught up with the tail end of the migration from the feeding grounds of Alaska to the breeding grounds of Mexico -- although he is keeping his distance, Mate said.

"He's not stopping to feed or breed, so his goals may be further south than this," he said.

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