Gray Whales The Legacy

The sculptures stand at the entrance of Birch Aquarium at Scripps, with gray whales caught mid-breach. A 2026 visitor guide says the sculptures mark the entrance, with two whales breaching in one fountain pool and a third tail-up in a separate nearby pool.

The group is called The Legacy and is the work of Randy Puckett. His gallery biography says it consists of a breaching female gray whale and her calf, plus the diving tail of a third gray whale, displayed in two fountains. According to the same text, at the time of its installation in 1996 it was the only life-size bronze sculpture of any of the large whales in the world, and at 39 feet 10 inches tall it was the second-largest bronze sculpture ever cast in the United States. Those superlatives come from the artist's own account; the biography adds that he began casting in bronze in 1981 and that visitors to Monterey Bay Aquarium's Hall of Marine Mammals see his life-size gray whales and orcas overhead.