Pacific has gone a little crazy around Monterey too

The wildlife tumult along our coast the past couple of years — orcas, whales, dolphins, sharks, oarfish, boobies, an albatross, sick sea lions and more — is also visiting the waters of Monterey Bay. Up there it all begins with the anchovies. The New York Times took notice this weekend. Excerpt from the piece, accompanied by some nice photos by Jim Wilson:

It began with the anchovies, miles and miles of them, their silvery blue bodies thick in the waters of Monterey Bay.

Then the sea lions came, by the thousands, from up and down the California coast, and the pelicans, arriving in one long V-formation after another. Fleets of bottlenose dolphins joined them.

But it was the whales that astounded even longtime residents — more than 200 humpbacks lunging, breaching, blowing and tail flapping — and, on a recent weekend, a pod of 19 rowdy orcas that briefly crashed the party, picking off sea lions along the way.

“I can’t tell you where to look,” Nancy Black, a marine biologist leading a boat full of whale watchers last week, said as the water in every direction roiled with mammals. “It’s all around.”

We've been covering the profusion of high-profile nature out in the Pacific: here's the archive. Meanwhile, Manhattan Beach paddlers and anglers have been asked to stop annoying the great white sharks.