A lifeless 50-foot grey whale washed ashore in Huntington Seashore on Friday, in line with officers with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.
The reason for loss of life of the younger grownup feminine is just not but identified, mentioned Glenn Grey, chief government of the Laguna Seashore-based nonprofit. Staff of the middle carried out a necropsy of the physique on Saturday morning.
The whale had no indicators of bodily damage, Grey mentioned. Such marks are sometimes seen if a whale is struck by a ship, bitten by a shark or entangled in fishing gear.
Samples from the physique have been despatched to a lab for testing.
“It could take a pair weeks,” he mentioned. “We’ll share with the general public what we all know.”
Scientists say grey whales have been dying in massive numbers this 12 months.
At least 70 whales have died for the reason that starting of the 12 months within the lagoons of Baja California in Mexico, the place they go within the winter, in line with Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who research grey whales.
The whales are actually headed north to their summer time feeding grounds within the Arctic and sub-Arctic areas.
In latest weeks, three grey whales have died in San Francisco Bay.
Researchers aren’t positive why larger numbers of whales are dying. The our bodies of a few of the lifeless whales have appeared depleted and malnourished, main some scientists to imagine the issue may very well be a scarcity of meals.
Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society’s grey whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, mentioned the variety of whales she and her volunteers have noticed migrating north this spring and swimming south this previous winter is the bottom on file.
Earlier this month, a minke whale that spent days swimming in Lengthy Seashore Harbor died — despite efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it again to deeper waters.
Investigators with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been attempting to find out what induced the minke whale’s loss of life.
