Tracking of climatological resource waves suggests that blue whales time their northward migrations to exploit expected resource availability in interannually predictable productivity hotspots. Even in years with the largest sample sizes of tagged individuals (e.g., 2005, 2008), we did not detect a significant signal for tracking of proximate resource waves (Fig. 2). Thus, we did not find support for the green wave hypothesis for tracking of contemporaneous resource waves among blue whales. Because the timing of upwelling-driven productivity in the California Current Ecosystem has significant interannual variability and habitat patches are highly dynamic (42, 43), blue whales may instead maximize their resource gain by targeting predictable foraging areas, a strategy that should theoretically favor memory (23). This conclusion is supported by evidence that during migration, foraging areas selected by blue whales were characterized by low year-to-year variability and high long-term productivity compared with contemporaneous measurements as well as with habitats available in their environment (Fig. 4). Similarly, a recent study found that over an 11-y period, blue whales consistently arrived in Monterey Bay during periods when prey availability was more predictable, with low interannual variance, relative to time periods of higher but more variable prey density (36). Interestingly, similar responses to the tradeoff between selecting habitats with consistent versus potentially higher but more variable resource availability have been observed in migratory ungulates; specifically, saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) selected habitats in their spring range that had lower forage abundance but also more consistent year-to-year productivity than other available habitats (59). In coastal marine systems, persistent productivity hotspots are often geographically fixed at capes and headlands along the coast, which generate increased upwelling and primary productivity (60) and form upwelling shadows favorable for krill aggregations (61, 62). Indeed, one blue whale for which tag data were available in successive years arrived at the same foraging area near Cape Mendocino within the same week 1 y later, suggesting it timed its arrival to an expected increase in food availability (39).