When a dead gray whale washed ashore on Virgin Creek Beach in Fort Bragg on Thursday, scientists rushed to the scene to perform a necropsy before decomposition set in.
“The art form of conducting a whale necropsy is quite an intensive process,” said Giancarlo Rulli with The Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit involved in the effort.
Rulli said a gray whale necropsy can involve over a dozen scientists, working for hours on a 40-foot carcass. Researchers collect skin samples, measure blubber depth and check for contusions to determine if the whale was malnourished or had contact with boats or fishing gear.
“It's quite an intricate, complex process, but incredibly vital to not only tell the here and now of an individual whale, but try to take a step back and extrapolate,” Rulli said. “Each individual whale that's being responded to and documented through a necropsy investigation is paired with information from Mexico, from Canada and up in Alaska.”
He said there’s been an alarming number of gray whale beachings this year. Monitors have reported around 20 so far on the West Coast, along the species' 10,000-mile migration route from breeding areas near Mexico to Arctic feeding grounds.
The gray whale that washed ashore in Fort Bragg was the first recorded in Mendocino County this year.
Rulli said he’s not seen whale beaching numbers like this since a high-mortality event that began in 2019. Within a four-year period, gray whales lost about half their population.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration authorizes whale necropsy teams. Researchers with the California Academy of Sciences often respond to beached whales in Northern California.
“The teams here in Central and Northern California, due to just the sheer volume of dead whales that have been responded to, are amongst the best in the country,” Rulli said.
Researchers say gray whales have lost Arctic feeding grounds due to a warming ocean. The search for food has led them closer to shore, increasing the risk of beaching and interaction with humans.
