Dead humpback whale probably killed by ship
At the time of death, the female humpback whale was, by all accounts, healthy.
She was an average 49 feet in length, with ample amounts of blubber and fat reserves, and likely was spending the summer off California to feed before heading south toward the Baja California coast for the winter mating season.
But sometime this summer, a ship struck the endangered whale, leading to her death, marine experts said.
Beachgoers first spotted the whale Aug. 28, as tides carried the bloated carcass ashore on Half Moon Bay’s Manhattan Beach.
A team from the Marine Mammal Center, based in Marin County, was dispatched to conduct a necropsy on the humpback whale.
Experts noted that the whale had a massive contusion over the right chest, and
the skull and upper vertebrae were dislocated from the spine.
“These findings, combined with overall excellent
body condition, strongly implicate blunt-force trauma associated with a ship strike as this whale’s cause of death,” said Dr. Pádraig
Duignan, director of pathology at the Marine Mammal Center.
Humpbacks are among the most endangered whales, with only 10% of their original population remaining, the center said. Among a global population of 35,000 to 40,000, nearly 3,000 humpbacks live off the western coast of North America.
The carcass found Sunday was the 10th dead whale reported in the San Francisco Bay Area this year and the third dead humpback, according to the Marine Mammal Center.
The other seven were gray whales, which have been washing ashore in greater numbers since early 2019, prompting the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an ongoing “unusual mortality event” along the West Coast.