A dead gray whale washed up on a beach in Alameda on Saturday night, becoming the first reported whale death in the San Francisco Bay Area this year.
The California Academy of Sciences initially reported the whale floating off the coast of Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach, according to a statement shared by the Marine Mammal Center. The whale may have been stuck in mud or a sandbar, but by early Sunday morning had dislodged and was floating freely with the tide.
The whale is an adult female gray whale estimated to be about 40 feet long. Cal Academy was able to get close enough via boat for observation and collected blubber samples and measurements. It is not the same whale that was entangled in a gill net off the coast of San Francisco two weeks ago.
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The whale will be towed to Angel Island State Park for a necropsy, which will attempt to determine a cause of death, according to the statement. The towing was tentatively planned for Monday.
The U.S. Coast Guard was aware of the whale and towing effort but is not involved in the operation, said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Hunter Schnabel.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an Unusual Mortality Event for gray whales in 2019 due to a larger-than-usual number of dead whales in poor condition washing ashore along their migration range. The UME has since closed, according to the Marine Mammal Center statement.
Research from the Marine Mammal Center and Cal Academy has identified malnutrition, entanglement and vessel strike trauma to be the leading causes of death for gray whales in recent years. Other factors in deaths include infectious diseases, natural predation, harmful algae blooms and human interactions.