12th dead whale washes up on beach in the San Francisco Bay this year
A whale was found Friday washed up on Pacifica State Beach, bringing the number of dead whales found this year in San Francisco Bay to 12.
A dead gray whale was reported around 3 p.m. at Pacifica State Beach, Marine Mammal Center officials reported, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Tissue samples were collected Saturday and the whale was confirmed to be a 47-foot adult male, said Marine Mammal Center spokesperson Giancarlo Rulli, the publication reported. Because the animal was in an “advanced state of decomposition,” officials said they didn’t perform a necropsy.
Previously, nine gray whales, a fin whale and pygmy sperm whale were found deceased in the Bay area this year, according to KRON4.
“Our team hasn’t responded to this number of dead gray whales in such a short span since 2019 when we performed a startling 13 necropsies in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Dr. Pádraig Duignan, Director of Pathology at The Marine Mammal Center, the station reported.
A gray whale was found washed ashore May 3 in the Port of Oakland and another was found May 4 at Angel State Park. Experts didn’t perform necropsies on either whale to determine the cause of death, according to a Marine Mammal Center news release.
A gray whale washed up May 11 on Poplar Beach and another May 14 on Agate Beach. The whale that washed ashore on Agate Beach died from a ship strike, experts said, according to KRON4.
The Marine Mammal Center’s research team found that entanglement, trauma from ship strikes and malnutrition are the most common causes of death for whales they studied, according to the release.
“Nobody wants to see whales die,” said Justin Viezbicke, California stranding network coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries Service. “Our partners, like The Marine Mammal Center, help us learn from the whales that have died to understand the factors affecting the remaining 20,000 gray whales still migrating north off the West Coast.”
The number of gray whales migrating across the West Coast has dropped 24% since 2016, NOAA Fisheries reported in January.
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 7:42 AM with the headline "12th dead whale washes up on beach in the San Francisco Bay this year."