Researchers blame malnutrition for record-breaking number of gray whale deaths
Moment crowd cheers on stranded whale ‘Timmy’ is guided onto barge in rescue operation
Twenty-two gray whales have been found dead on Northwest beaches and along Washington’s Puget Sound this year, already surpassing the number of strandings recorded at the same point in the record-breaking year of 2019.
Malnutrition has been identified as the most common finding in the whales examined, according to experts from Cascadia Research Collective and NOAA Fisheries.
Researchers believe that climate change in the Arctic, the whales’ feeding grounds, is reducing their prey due to factors such as increasing ocean acidity, rising temperatures, and changing oceanographic patterns.
Gray whales in Washington are designated with a “sensitive” status, indicating they are vulnerable or declining and face a high risk of becoming endangered or threatened within the state.
In addition to malnutrition, other significant threats contributing to gray whale deaths include entanglement in fishing gear and marine debris, ship strikes (responsible for at least four deaths this year), and human-generated marine sound.
