US government biologists have launched a special investigation into the deaths of at least 70 gray whales washed ashore in the past few months along the US West Coast, from California to Alaska, many of them emaciated, officials said on Friday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared the whale die-off an “unusual mortality event,” a designation that triggers greater scrutiny and allocation of more resources to determine the cause.
So far this year, 37 dead gray whales have turned up in California waters, three in Oregon, 25 in Washington state and five in Alaska, said officials at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Five more were found in British Columbia.
The most recent dead whale in Alaska was spotted last week near Chignik Bay on the Alaska peninsula.
Many have little body fat, leading experts to suspect the die-off is caused by declining food sources in the dramatically warming waters of the northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
The gray whales summer there, consuming most of a year’s worth of nourishment to pack on the blubber they need to carry them through the migration south to wintering grounds off Mexico and back north to feeding grounds off Alaska.
Sea ice has been at or near record lows in the Bering and Chukchi, and water temperatures have been persistently much higher than normal, an apparent consequence of human-caused climate change, scientists say.
The conditions the whales encountered last summer could be hurting the animals now as they make their annual migration north, said scientists assembled by NOAA for a teleconference.
“The Arctic is changing very, very quickly, and the whales are going to have to adjust to that,” University of Washington oceanographer Sue Moore told reporters.
Lack of sea ice could be reducing supplies of the tiny crustaceans known as amphipods that are the gray whales’ prime food source, Moore said.
“The sea ice has been changing very quickly over the last decade or so,” she said.
Another theory is that the number of whales has reached the limits of the environment’s natural capacity to sustain further population growth, scientists said on the call.
The estimated population of eastern North Pacific gray whales is about 27,000, the highest recorded by the agency since it began gray whale surveys in 1967, biologist David Weller said.
“Keep in mind that carrying capacity is not a hard ceiling, but that it’s a shifting threshold,” said Weller, who is with the agency’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego.
“In some years or period of years the environment is capable of supporting more whales than in other years,” he said.
The deaths could be caused by a combination of factors, as in other die-offs, the scientists said.
Some whales have detoured into places such as San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound, where they face a greater risk of ship strikes and other hazards, said John Calambokidis, a biologist and gray whale expert with the Cascadia Research Collective.
“We are seeing lots of live gray whales in unusual areas, some of them clearly emaciated, trying to feed,” he said.
More dead whales are expected to wash ashore during the northward migration, the scientists said. The total of dead whales documented probably represents a small fraction of those that have perished in this episode, they said.
The last major West Coast gray whale die-off, in 1999 and 2000, was believed to have been related to an ocean-warming El Nino event. It also triggered an unusual mortality event declaration.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS