Baird’s beaked whale

Species description

The largest of the beaked whales, Baird’s beaked whales (Berardius bairdii) can grow to a length of nearly eleven meters and weigh nearly twelve thousand kilograms. Females in general are slightly bigger than males. Their bodies are long and slender and a lightish gray, with a small triangular dorsal fin about a third of their length back from the tail. Their beak is long and cylindrical, and their lower jaw extends beyond their upper jaw. Both females and males have two pairs of visible teeth on that lower jaw—a sign of sexual maturity. Males may become scarred on their heads and bodies from raking each other with their teeth during competitive displays. Although beaked whales in general are difficult to see, the Baird’s beaked whale is one of the more commonly encountered due to their large body size and behaviors. A smaller, darker beaked whale in Japanese waters formerly thought to be a subspecies was classified as its own species—Sato’s beaked whale—in 2021 (Brownell and Kasuya 2021).

Behavior and ecology

Like all beaked whales, Baird’s beaked whales are inconspicuous at sea. As such, not as much is known of their habits and behaviors compared to other cetaceans in the Salish Sea and elsewhere. Baird’s beaked whales have been documented traveling together in pods of up to two dozen whales, but may form larger groups of up to fifty individuals. They hunt using echolocation, diving deep to pursue fish (mackerel, saury, rockfish, sardines), cephalopods (primarily squids and octopuses), and skates, among other prey (Balcolm 1989, MacLeod et al. 2003). Prey are usually captured between seven hundred and twelve hundred meters in depth. Baird’s beaked whale foraging dives can last longer than one hour (Minamikawa et al. 2007)—the longest recorded was 81.7 minutes (Stimpert et al. 2014)—but typically average between thirty to forty-five minutes (Tyack et al. 2006). 

Range and population status

Baird’s beaked whales occur throughout the North Pacific Ocean, from the Bering Sea south to Baja California, and on the west coast of the U.S. from Alaska to California. In U.S. waters, NOAA divides the species into an Alaskan stock and a Washington-Oregon-California stock (NOAA 2022). Owing to the species’ cryptic behavior, counting whales is difficult even in the most favorable marine conditions (Becker et al. 2020). According to the most recent assessment from NOAA in 2021, the total population of the Washington-Oregon-California stock is or about 1,363 individuals, a number that appeared to be stable or increasing based on at-sea surveys completed between 2008 and 2018 (Becker et al. 2020, NOAA 2022). 

 Threats

Although still commercially hunted in Japan (Sasaki et al. 2023), the Baird’s beaked whale is protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act throughout its range in U.S. waters. That said, the species faces a variety of human-associated threats, including marine pollution and vessel strikes (NOAA 2022, Feyrer et al. 2024). Off the U.S. west coast, Baird’s beaked whales are sometimes entangled in fishing gear, although attaching pingers to gillnets reduced the threat off the coast of California (Dolman and Moore 2017). They are also sensitive to vessel noise and other sound pollution, e.g., from military exercises. When exposed to naval mid-frequency active sonar in controlled experiments, Baird’s beaked whales show increased speed and body movement, along with atypical diving behaviors (Stimpert et al. 2014). 

In the Salish Sea

Due to their preference for deeper waters, Baird’s beaked whales probably do not spend too much time in the Salish Sea, although individuals have occasionally stranded here over the years (Calambokidis and Baird 1994). The skeleton from a Baird’s beaked whale that washed ashore in Seattle in 2015, perhaps the victim of a vessel strike, is now on display in the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle. 

References

Balcolm KC. 1989. Baird’s beaked whale Berardius bairdii Stejner, 1883: Arnoux’s beaked whale Berardius arnuxii Duvernoy, 1851. In Handbook of marine mammals. Vol.4. River dolphins and the larger toothed whales (ed. S.H. Ridgway and R. Harrison), pp.261 - 288. London: Academic Press.

Becker EA, Forney KA, Miller DL, Fiedler PC, Barlow J, and Moore JE. 2020. Habitat-based density estimates for cetaceans in the California Current Ecosystem based on 1991-2018 survey data. U.S. Department of Commerce. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SWFSC638.

Brownell Jr RL, Kasuya T. 2021. Sato's beaked whale: A new cetacean species discovered around Japan. Marine Mammal Science. 37(2):768-71.

Calambokidis J and Baird RW. 1994. Status of marine mammals in the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and Juan de Fuca Strait and potential human impacts. In: Review of the marine environment and biota of Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and Juan de Fuca Strait (pp 282-303). Proceedings of the BC/Washington Symposium on the Marine Environment, January 13 and 14, 1994. (R.C.H. Wilson, R.J. Beamish, F. Aitkens, and J. Bell, Ed.). Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences No. 1948. 

Dolman SJ and Moore MJ. 2017. Welfare implications of cetacean bycatch and entanglements. In: Marine Mammal Welfare: Human Induced Change in the Marine Environment and Its Impacts on Marine Mammal Welfare (pp. 41-65). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Feyrer LJ, Stanistreet JE, Moors-Murphy HB. 2024. Navigating the unknown: assessing anthropogenic threats to beaked whales, family Ziphiidae. Royal Society Open Science 11(4):240058.

MacLeod CD, Santos MB, Pierce GJ. 2003. Review of data on diets of beaked whales: evidence of niche separation and geographic segregation. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. 83(3):651-65.

Minamikawa S, Iwasaki T, Kishiro T. Diving behaviour of a Baird’s beaked whale, Berardius bairdii, in the slope water region of the western North Pacific: first dive records using a data logger. 2007. Fisheries Oceanography 16(6):573-7.

NOAA. 2022. Baird’s beaked whale (Berardius bairdii): California/Oregon/Washington Stock. https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2022-08/pacific-2021-beaked-whale-mesoplodont.pdf. Accessed 15 August 2025.  

Sasaki H, Kanaji Y, Hakamada T, Matsuoka K, Miyashita T, Minamikawa S. 2023 Estimating the abundance of Baird’s beaked whales in waters off the Pacific coast of Japan using line transect data (2008–2017). Fisheries Science 89:439–447.

Stimpert AK, DeRuiter SL, Southall BL, Moretti DJ, Falcone EA, Goldbogen JA, Friedlaender A, Schorr GS, and Calambokidis J. 2014. Acoustic and foraging behavior of a Baird's beaked whale, Berardius bairdii, exposed to simulated sonar. Scientific Reports 4(1):7031.

Tyack PL, Johnson M, Soto NA, Sturlese A, and Madsen PT. 2006 Extreme diving of beaked whales. Journal of Experimental Biology 209:4238–4253.