Dead Whales Foating the Oceans 800 and 1,200 deaths annually

Apr 12 2000

This adult male gray whale washed ashore Friday night after floating near Camano Island and in Saratoga Passage for about a week.

A strange bit of irony hit home for Jack and Norma Metcalf this week when a dead gray whale washed up on their Saratoga Road beach Friday evening.The adult male gray had been floating dead near Camano Island and in the Saratoga Passage for about a week before making landfall in front of the Log Castle Bed and Breakfast, which the Metcalfs own.Congressman Jack Metcalf was a vocal opponent of the the Makah Indian tribe’s gray whale hunt last year, during which tribe members managed to kill one whale.Norma Metcalf, who was home Friday, said the whale floated onto the beach so close to their home that it was practically in the living room. Approximately 40 feet long, the whale settled against a bulkhead separating the Log Castle from the water. By Tuesday afternoon, the National Marine Fisheries Service — the agency responsible for investigating whale deaths — had not yet collected tissue samples from the beast. Even with those samples, said Brent Norberg, an NMFS biologist, it will be difficult to come up with a cause of death.Unless there is obvious external trauma, it’s difficult to find out what happened, Norberg said.Tissue samples are next to useless unless taken within hours of a whale’s death, Norberg said, because traces of disease usually disappear quickly as the animal decomposes. The NMFS first received a report of the dead whale from Camano Island fishermen early last Thursday.The animal starts cooking from the inside out from the time of death, he said.Last year, the NMFS recorded more gray whale beachings from Mexico to Alaska than in any previous year. A total of 273 whales floated onto land in 1999, about a dozen of those in Puget Sound. Much of that kill-off is to be expected, Norberg said, since the gray whale population is now estimated to be at or above pre-whaling levels. Of the 25,000-plus animals living in the Eastern Pacific region, Norberg said his agency expects between 800 and 1,200 deaths annually.NMFS biologists were unable to find conclusive evidence in last year’s whale death’s that point to man-made killers, such as toxic chemicals or pollution. Twenty-eight whales beached on Washington’s coastline last year, including two that found their way to South Whidbey shores. The vast majority of those animals were dead long before reaching shore.Norberg said it is likely that this week’s whale and many others that have floated ashore in the spring died of starvation. Gray whales pass Washington each spring on their way from California to feeding grounds in the Bering Sea. Most have eaten little for months, spending their time breeding, calving, and swimming along their migration route. Some hunger-weakened whales swim into Puget Sound during the migration to search for food, Norberg said.Removing the whale carcass is one of the major concerns in any beaching. Individual landowners, whether they be private citizens or public agencies, are responsible for the disposal of the marine life that washes onto their beach. Norberg said he will try to find some way to assist the Metcalfs in removing the carcass. Last year, personnel from NAS Whidbey removed a whale carcass from Holmes Harbor, then buried on Navy property in Oak Harbor.”

Dead gray whale sighted off South Whidbey

By ROY JACOBSON
South Whidbey Record Reporter
Apr 27 2009

The body of a gray whale remains floating on its side in Saratoga Passage Monday evening after attempts to tow it to Oak Harbor for examination failed.

The full-grown 40-foot-long adult whale was first spotted about 8 a.m. Sunday floating off the northwest side of Camano Island north of Madrona Beach opposite Penn Cove.

It later floated past Langley, heading south.

A crabbing boat crew attempted a tow, but abandoned the effort about 4 p.m. today. However, the crew marked the carcass with an large orange buoy.

“It was too big for the boat,” said Howard Garrett of the Orca Network, the local whale-tracking organization based in Greenbank.

He said officials will wait for the whale to wash up onshore, and then test it for toxins and cause of death.

“We hope it washes up in a place where we can get at it,” he said.

Garrett said he’s not sure if the whale was a regular visitor to the area, but it may be the same one that was “looking poorly” around Holmes Harbor the past month.

Meanwhile, another dead gray whale was seen floating in Birch Bay north of Anacortes on Monday, “but nobody’s got up close to it yet,” Garrett said.

Dead gray whale still floating on the tide

By ROY JACOBSON
South Whidbey Record Reporter
Apr 28 2009

The dead gray whale that floated past Langley on Monday had yet to find a resting place Tuesday, officials said.

“The tide picked it up, and we don’t know where it’s going to leave it,” Howard Garrett of Orca Network, the local whale-tracking organization based in Greenbank, said Tuesday morning.

A dead gray whale more than 40 feet long is approached by a boat in Saratoga Passage northwest of Camano Island on Monday. Howard Garrett photo

Its last reported position was just north of Gedney Island, west of Everett, in Possession Sound.

Garrett said the current extreme high and low tides in the area may push the whale west toward Admiralty Inlet, but that’s just a guess.

“With these tides, it could be carried a long way,” he said about noon Tuesday.

The Coast Guard was monitoring the mammal’s position and sending out reports to mariners in the area “so they don’t run over it or destroy their boats,” Petty Officer John Spadafora of the Coast Guard’s search and rescue unit, said Tuesday morning.

“The tide runs in three different directions out there,” Spadafora said. “It could go anywhere.”

The full-grown 40-foot-long adult male whale was first spotted about 8 a.m. Sunday floating on its side off the northwest section of Camano Island north of Madrona Beach opposite Penn Cove.

On Monday, it drifted past Langley, then headed south in Saratoga Passage, as TV cameras in helicopters tracked its progress.

A crew of a crab boat in the area volunteered to tow the carcass to Oak Harbor for examination, but “it was too big for the boat,” Garrett said, and the whale was cut loose about 4 p.m. Monday.

He said the whale settled off Sandy Point south of Langley and appeared to be headed toward the beach on the tide Monday evening, but residents reported that the tide had carried it out again about 10 p.m.

Garrett said he hopes the whale will wash up on shore soon, so Orca Network scientists can examine it.

“If it takes more than a week, it will be too far gone,” he said. “And once the bloating breaks through, it could sink pretty fast.”

He said it appeared the gray whale had been attacked by a killer whale at some point, but that probably wasn’t the cause of its death. He said the whale may be the same one that had been “looking poorly” in the Holmes Harbor area during the past month.

Garrett said it was uncertain if the whale was a member of the group of 10 or 12 that have regularly visited Saratoga Passage during their annual migration from Mexico to Canada.

For years, the gray whales have stopped off in the area to feed on abundant beds of ghost shrimp in the area.

The annual visit of the whales is commemorated by the city of Langley, which celebrated a well-attended Welcome the Whales Day just a week ago.

Kristin Wilkinson, a marine mammal stranding specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, said the agency has been monitoring the whale’s progress and is standing by to assist Orca Network once the carcass washes up on shore.

NOAA oversees mammal-stranding networks in Washington and Oregon and helps organize examinations and carcass disposal.

She said once a stranded mammal has been examined, it may be left where it is on the beach, with the property owner’s permission. Or it may be buried above the tide line, or towed out to sea and sunk.

“It really just depends on the situation and locality,” Wilkinson said. “There are usually a handful of options we can use.”

She said that determining the cause of death of a whale can sometimes take several months of analysis.

Wilkinson said that often, scientists return to the site of a decomposed whale to retrieve the bones for study.

While whale strandings have been rare in Saratoga Passage, it’s not uncommon to have five to 10 a year in Washington and Oregon, Wilkinson said.

There have been five reported whale strandings this year. Last year there were three, in 2007 there were seven and in 2006 there were 12, she said.

“There really are no alarm bells being raised, but we’re keeping our eyes out,” she said.

She said the last unusual number of gray-whale deaths was in 2005, when there were 16.

Wilkinson said the reason for that number of deaths remains undetermined, but that often in such abnormal years, it’s a case of the whale population growing too large to be sustained by its environment.

Meanwhile, the Langley whale was the second whale death reported in the area.

Wilkinson said a gray whale 20 to 30 feet long, perhaps a yearling or a sub-adult, was found floating dead just south of Cherry Point off Gulf Road Beach north of Bellingham on Monday.

She said the whale, whose gender hadn’t been determined, had been secured to pilings, and a stranding network team was on the way Tuesday to begin an examination.

Earlier this month, gray-whale strandings also were reported in Neah Bay and at Illwaco, off the Washington Coast, Wilkinson said.

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