Malnourished Gray Whales of the Eastern North Pacific Are in ‘Serious Trouble’
Key takeaways
- Republish Researchers take samples from a male gray whale on a beach near Moclips, Wash., on April 11.
- Twenty-two carcasses have been found so far this spring, many of them battered by collisions with boats.
- This whale stock is one of the most studied in the world, and scientists say the current population nosedive has lasted longer than previous cycles of decline monitored over the past 60 years.
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
Republish Researchers take samples from a male gray whale on a beach near Moclips, Wash., on April 11. Post-mortem showed cause of death as malnutrition and blunt force trauma, probably from colliding with a boat. Credit: Courtesy of Cascadia Research Collective Related Norway Reopens Annual Whale Hunt Despite Pressure to End Commercial Whaling Southern Right Whales Are Having Fewer Calves; Scientists Say a Warming Ocean Is to Blame Whale Entanglements in Fishing Gear Surge Off U.S. West Coast During Marine Heatwaves Share This Article Republish Most Popular Wildfire Crews Race to Keep Fierce California Blaze From Former Nuclear Reactor Site Top Climate Scientists Accuse the Livestock Industry of Pushing Fuzzy Math to Downplay Its Climate Warming Emissions EPA Claims ‘Overwhelming Rejection’ of EVs as It Moves to Loosen Air Pollution Rules SEATTLE—Exceptionally skinny gray whales—enfeebled by starvation and mangled by blunt-force trauma—are washing up this spring along the coast of Washington state in numbers that alarm marine-mammal scientists.
Twenty-two carcasses have been found so far this spring, many of them battered by collisions with boats. Dead and dying on beaches, in harbors and up narrow rivers, they are grim evidence of what researchers say is a population and fertility collapse among gray whales that has been worsening for seven years and is driven by climate change in the rapidly warming Arctic.
A surge in malnutrition-related mortality has cut the eastern North Pacific population of gray whales in half, to about 13,000 last year from about 27,000 in 2016, while reducing calf births by 95 percent, according to counts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This whale stock is one of the most studied in the world, and scientists say the current population nosedive has lasted longer than previous cycles of decline monitored over the past 60 years.