In what NOAA called the "Unusual Mortality Event (UME)," more than 690 gray whale strandings were documented from December 2018 to November 2023, along the West Coast of North America. Even in 2025, the strandings haven’t stopped. Every few days, a scientist is bamboozled by a whale carcass lying enrobed in the shoreline sand somewhere. Some scientists from Cascadia Research recently investigated the Long Beach Peninsula and were stunned to find the carcass of an adult female who was likely migrating past the Washington coast. Six additional carcasses were reported in Washington State.
Whale biologist, John Calambokidis, who has been studying whales for more than four decades with Cascadia Research, shared with KNKX, “Just in Washington. And usually our peak continues through the end of June. So we're, you know, I think we are going to be seeing more.” Not just the Washington coast, this winter, more than 80 whales were found dead in the southern Baja lagoons. The number of newborn calves was also found to be shrinking, which implied that whales were struggling to find their mates.
Investigation of most of the recent whale carcasses revealed that they were suffering from malnutrition, something that a study published in the PLOS journal also mentioned. In this study, scientists examined 61 whale carcasses they had stumbled upon on the shores and found that 16 were severely emaciated by predator attack, 11 had died from blunt force trauma followed by a ship collision, one died from entrapment, and two were entangled in plastic fishing gear. But the cause behind a major portion of whales dying was starvation.
The principal cause behind these starving whales is a culprit called climate change. With an alarming thinning of the ozone layer, copious amounts of solar radiation are blaring up and tearing through the atmosphere to assault the Arctic ice shelf, per Polar Journal. While the intense, scorching monster of heat licks and steals away blankets of ice from the polar ice cap, the sea ice algae, little fishes, and other crustaceans lurking beneath it are disappearing.
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