As of May 29, 25 gray whales have washed up on Washington’s coastlines this year alone.
This makes it close to breaking the previous record of 35 gray whales to wash up in Washington in an entire year, set in 2019.
Researchers suggest that the reason behind the increasing beaching events is a lack of food. According to the Cascadia Research Collective, the whales that have washed up all show signs of malnutrition, which strongly suggests that the cause of the deaths is food availability.
Furthermore, a lack of food in typical locations is causing the whales to migrate to areas where they are further exposed to harm from water traffic, such as vessel strikes and entanglement. Out of the 17 whales given a necropsy, seveb showed signs of blunt force trauma. This exposes a serious concern about water vehicle regulation and education about safely sharing the ocean with marine creatures.
Each year, gray whales migrate from their breeding grounds in Mexico up to their feeding grounds in Alaska for the summer. During this 12,000-mile journey, the whales essentially do not eat and are running on energy stores accumulated from their time in Mexico. Mothers and calves are especially vulnerable, as mothers fast for a total of six months. However, it is noted that out of the 25 individuals washed ashore, only four are identified as females.
When the gray whales finally arrive in Alaskan waters, a feast is expected in the form of krill blooms of the Arctic summer. After this strenuous journey, it is essential that they find the food stores they are looking for in the Arctic.
It is along this great migration, from April to June, that gray whales pass by the Washington coast. But somewhere on this route, many whales among the migrating population are not finding the long-awaited feast, and are increasingly falling prey to environmental pressures.
General locations where beached whales were found, according to Cascadia Research Collective (Map Credit: Maryam Siddiqui, The Watchdog)
The reason behind the declining food is the all-too-familiar, ugly mug of climate change.
The Arctic is the most dramatically affected location in the globe. The icy, carefully-balanced ecosystem of polar regions is heavily impacted by even a decimal increase in temperature. Changes in the bottom levels of the food chain, where microscopic organisms reside, are creating shockwaves felt all the way up to apex predators and mega organisms.
Gray whales are no exception. When we examine what’s happening at the bottom of their food chain, we land on algae. Algae typically grow on the underside of sea ice, where they eventually die, sink to the bottom of the ocean, and create carbon as they decay. As sea ice melting rates increase with rising temperatures, there is less room for algae to grow, thereby decreasing carbon presence in the seafloor. Gray whales’ highest quality prey, tiny seafloor-dwelling crustaceans, as a result, are experiencing changes to the seafloor sediment composition, the habitat on which they rely. It is suspected that it is due to this unpredictable dance of chemical and biological processes that gray whales have been in a steep decline for the past six years.
Sadly, the downward trend in gray whale populations coincided just as they were seeing recovery. The 1970s “Save the Whales” movement against commercial whaling was highly successful. By 2018, the gray whale populations in the eastern North Pacific had peaked to almost 23,000 whales, but by 2023, they were estimated to have gone down to 17,000. As the global climate shifts and temperatures rise due to human activities, we are reminded once again that we need to change what we are doing if we want to see our whales persist.
If a stranded marine mammal is spotted, it is strongly recommended that the public report it to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline at 1-866-767-6114. Moreover, if the creature is a whale, contact the Cascadia Research Collective at 360-791-9555 or email strandings@cascadiaresearch.org. The date, time, location, description of the animal, name and contact information will likely be asked, so make sure to record any details observed. For safety, keep a distance of at least 100 yards from the beached animal until help arrives.
