Eastern Pacific whales appear to be starving, and this causes scientists a big deal of distress as they cannot identify what seems to be causing this decline. Over the past few years, Dr. William Megill of Earthwatch and his team have been noticing that at the end of the migration of the grey whales, their fat has gone, and they don't seem to be as interested in breeding anymore.

One hypothesis is that there's not enough food stock going around for the whales to be kept nourished. So instead of breeding, they busy themselves looking for their food. Talk about getting their priorities straight, eh? Another guess is that the warming waters affect their productivity, as well as the number of tiny crustaceans, which are the staple dish of the grey whales.

Then again, it could just be because the population of the grey whales became "unsustainably high", especially since they bounced back from the slump during the 1997 to 1998 El Nino event. "It could just be the whales ate them all," Megill acknowledges of the lack of food for the whales, "and what we're seeing is the same thing that happens to wolf and lynx populations when they eat too much of their prey."

But could this decline in the grey whales of the Pacific be just the tip of the iceberg? "It may be a lot more serious than just grey whales - they may just be the early warning sign of changes for the whole Pacific [Ocean], and we urgently need to know what's going on."