Where Do Whales Actually Live in the US?
Whales have confirmed sightings in 23 US states, based on 990,892 verified occurrence records.
By Tim, founder of Easy Street Markets. I maintain the wildlife database and verify every animal and source myself.
The states with the strongest confirmed populations are Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware and Florida, and 17 more. These are real, verified iNaturalist and GBIF occurrence records, not modeled range estimates.
A small number of states (1) have only a handful of unverified or vagrant records, too few to confirm whales as an established population there.
Confirmed states (23)
- whales in Alabama
- whales in Alaska
- whales in California
- whales in Connecticut
- whales in Delaware
- whales in Florida
- whales in Georgia
- whales in Hawaii
- whales in Louisiana
- whales in Maine
- whales in Maryland
- whales in Massachusetts
- whales in Mississippi
- whales in New Hampshire
- whales in New Jersey
- whales in New York
- whales in North Carolina
- whales in Oregon
- whales in Rhode Island
- whales in South Carolina
- whales in Texas
- whales in Virginia
- whales in Washington
Unconfirmed (1)
Only a handful of unverified or vagrant records exist for whales in Michigan, too few to confirm an established population.
Full whales guides by state