Dead gray whale is towed

A gray whale discovered adrift in Alameda ws brought to Marin County this week after being hauled by the Army Corps of Engineers to Sausalito.

On Thursday, officials were towing the carcass to a sheltered area in the Brooks Island Regional Preserve, a hook-shaped island south of Richmond. There the carcass will be allowed to decompose naturally, said Nick Malasavage, chief of the operations and readiness division at the San Francisco Army Corps of Engineers.

“We want to be more deliberate, be practical,” he said.

The whale is an adult male about 38 feet long. It was likely on a seasonal migration path along the coast of North America to Alaska.

Laura Sherr, a representative for the Marine Mammal Center, said a necropsy could not be conducted on the whale because of its moderate state of decomposition.

“There is not a lot we would be able to glean from this animal, unfortunately,” she said.

The Sausalito center, a nonprofit dedicated to wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, typically conducts a necropsy on dead gray whales to determine the cause of death. Common causes are malnutrition, entanglement or ship strikes, Sherr said.

“There's a lot to be learned from these species, and we typically want to be out there to determine a cause of death,” she said.

The carcass first was spotted Monday night, stranded near Alameda, said Justin Viezbicke, California stranding coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By Tuesday morning, it had drifted to the Alameda Ferry Terminal, presenting a potential navigational hazard. The Army Corps of Engineers responded and hauled the carcass to Sausalito to remove it as a potential aquatic obstacle.

Viezbicke said the NOAA and the Army Corps evaluated wind and current models in the Pacific Ocean to determine whether the levels were feasible for an offshore tow. He said during an offshore tow, a whale carcass may be taken 50 to 60 miles from the shore and left adrift. But the currents and wind levels were considered too dangerous for an operation, he said, and could result in the carcass being brought back to shore.

This is the third gray whale stranding on the California coast this year, Viezbicke said.

The NOAA has charted elevated gray whale strandings along the West Coast of North America from Mexico through Alaska since 2019, referring to it as an “unusual mortality event.” Over the past three years, the United States, Mexico and Canada have seen 531 gray whale strandings.

NOAA has cataloged 29 strandings in North America in 2022. Viezbicke said it may be an indication that such mortality events were tapering off. The gray whale northern migration season is expected to end between late April and early May.

“You usually see less and less as the year goes on,” he said.

The Associated Press reported Monday that a 39foot gray whale was found dead on the west side of Camano Island in Washington. Malnutrition was identified as a possible cause of death.