Baird's Beaked Whale

Berardius bairdii

Also known as: Pacific Giant Bottlenosed Whale, Northern Four-toothed Whale, North Pacific Bottlenose Whale, Giant Bottle-nosed Whale, Four-toothed Whale

LCLeast Concern
Baird's beaked whales surfacing together in open oceanPod of Baird's beaked whales surfacing together in open oceanIllustration: Baird's beaked whale, NOAA technical drawing showing full body profile and body scarringIllustration: Baird's beaked whale with bulbous forehead and small beak, digital painting
Photo: NOAA Fisheries · Public domainBaird's beaked whales surfacing together in open oceanPhoto: Wendy St. John · CC BY-SA 4.0Pod of Baird's beaked whales surfacing together in open oceanPhoto: NOAA United States. National Marine Fisheries Service · Public domainIllustration: Baird's beaked whale, NOAA technical drawing showing full body profile and body scarringPhoto: Jörg Mazur · CC BY-SA 4.0Illustration: Baird's beaked whale with bulbous forehead and small beak, digital painting

Baird's beaked whale is the largest of the world's beaked whales, a deep-diving hunter that spends most of its life far from land and rarely surfaces long enough to be noticed. Its many old names, including giant bottlenosed whale and four-toothed whale, hint at an animal sailors glimpsed more than they ever studied closely. The records below come from a genuinely uncommon sighting: fewer than 200 US occurrences in over two decades, concentrated off California and Washington in the warmer months.

Range through the year

Where Baird's Beaked Whale is seen

Baird's Beaked Whale is recorded in 3 US states from 18 occurrence records, most heavily in California (12 records) and Washington (4).

Current range18 records · 3 states
AlabamaArizonaArkansasCalifornia · 12 records · view state pageColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashington · 4 recordsWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingAlaska · 2 records · view state pageAKHawaiiHIPuerto RicoPR
Occurrence data by state and month
Baird's Beaked Whale – occurrence records by US state and month (18 total across 3 states)
StateJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecYear
California···3211131··12
Washington···121······4
Alaska······1···1·2

Based on 41 georeferenced US records, 2000-2026. Shading is observation density (where people record sightings), not true abundance. Alaska, Hawaii & Puerto Rico shown as insets.

Explore by state

Baird's Beaked Whale across 2 states

Occurrence records, conservation status, and the places it turns up, state by state. Open a state for detail, or visit its full page.

IUCN Red List status

  1. LC
  2. NT
  3. VU
  4. EN
  5. CR
  6. EW
  7. EX

LC – Least Concern

Widespread and abundant; not at risk.

SizeBaird's Beaked Whale beside a 1.8 m adult, drawn to scale
Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019 Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019
Body length
9.9–9.9 m32 ft 6 in–32 ft 6 in
Weight
11,400–11,400 kg25,133–25,133 lb

Silhouettes drawn to scale against a 1.8 m5 ft 11 in adult.

Elevation

From 147 georeferenced records, the Baird's Beaked Whale is recorded from sea levelsea level to 174 m571 ft, with half of sightings below sea levelsea level.

Each band shows the share of georeferenced sightings that fall within it. Records cluster where people live and hike, so low, populated elevations are over-represented. Read this as observation density, not true abundance.

Observation peakSeptember35 records

Seasonality from research-grade observation dates across the US (35 records, all years). Reflects when the species is recorded, not a guarantee of presence.

Best encounter

Where and when to see a Baird's Beaked Whale

Your best chance: California, in September.

Where
CaliforniaCA
When
September
Trophic relationshipsFood web What a Baird's Beaked Whale eats, and what eats it.
Eaten by

Few natural predators as an adult

This speciesBaird's Beaked Whale
Schoolmaster Armhook SquidBerryteuthis magisterBoreoatlantic Gonate SquidGonatus fabriciiPacific SardineSardinops sagaxLongnose LancetfishAlepisaurus feroxGiant GrenadierAlbatrossia pectoralisGiant Pacific OctopusEnteroctopus dofleiniSharpear Enope SquidAncistrocheirus lesueuriiCommon Clubhook SquidOnychoteuthis banksii
Eats8

A sample of documented feeding relationships, filtered to species that also occur in the US. Diet and predators vary by region and season, and this is not a complete list, many animals eat, and are eaten by, more than what has been formally recorded here.

Life history

The Baird's Beaked Whale (11400 kg25132.7 lb) is a carnivore that first breeds around 12 years, carries a 517-day gestation, and bears about 1 young per litter. Maximum recorded longevity is 84 years.

Life cycle

  1. Gestation1.4 years (≈17 months)
  2. Birthlitter of 1 young
  3. Sexual maturity12 yr (female) · 8 yr (male)
  4. Typical lifespan84 years
  5. Maximum recorded longevity84 years

Reproduction

Gestation
517days≈17 months
Litter size
1youngaverage
Litters / year
0.33littersabout one every 3 years
Age at first breeding
12years♀ 12 · ♂ 8 yr

Diet composition

Carnivore

By foraging composition: 90% invertebrates, 10% fish.

  • Invertebrates90%
  • Fish10%

Most active around the clock.

Typical values for the species, not local measurements. Maximum longevity is the longest lifespan on record; most individuals live far less.

Commonly confused with

Animals people sometimes mistake for the baird's beaked whale, and how to tell them apart.

The largest of the beaked whales

Beaked whales are a shy, deep-diving group, and Baird’s beaked whale is the biggest of them. Old whaling names such as giant bottlenosed whale and four-toothed whale describe an animal built heavier and longer than its relatives. It still carries the group’s signature long snout, plus a small dorsal fin set far back on the body.

A diet built for deep water

The prey recorded for this whale reads like a deep-sea menu: several kinds of squid, giant grenadier, longnose lancetfish, and giant Pacific octopus. All of these live well below the sunlit surface layer. That fits a whale famous for some of the deepest, longest dives of any cetacean. It rarely competes with coastal dolphins and porpoises for food, because it isn’t hunting in the same part of the water column at all.

Seen off California and Washington, mostly at a distance

Confirmed US sightings number well under 200 across more than two decades, split between California and Washington. Sightings rise through spring and peak in September before falling off again. That pattern likely tracks when the whales move closer to the continental shelf edge, and when observers are out on the water looking for them, rather than a true migration count. Nearly every confirmed US record sits right at the surface near the coast, the only place this deep-diving species is ever actually seen.

A slow life, rarely repeated

Few whales take as long to grow up. Females reach maturity around 12 years old, males closer to 8, and pregnancy runs roughly 17 months, one of the longest gestations of any marine mammal. A female typically raises a single calf and may give birth only once every three years. Some individuals have been recorded living past 80, among the oldest ages documented for any beaked whale.

Conservation

The IUCN lists Baird’s beaked whale as Least Concern. It faces no widespread threat today. Its deep, offshore habits do make it one of the harder cetaceans to study, though, and much of what’s known still comes from strandings and old whaling records rather than live observation at sea.

Sources

  1. GBIF – Berardius bairdii
  2. Wikipedia – Baird's beaked whale
  3. iNaturalist – Baird's Beaked Whale
  4. Wikidata – Berardius bairdii

Data & sources

The data and visualizations on this page draw on these open sources: