Another Gray Whale carcass washes ashore; Fourth in eight days
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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — A gray whale carcass washed ashore at Muir Beach in Marin County Thursday morning, the fourth dead whale to have washed ashore in the Bay Area in just over a week.
The Marine Mammal Center said its necropsy team would investigate both the whale found Thursday and another whale carcass found near the Berkeley Marina on Wednesday.
The center’s staff responded to two other gray whale deaths last week; the first at Crissy Field in San Francisco on March 31, the second at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve on the San Mateo County coast on Saturday.
A necropsy on the whale found at Crissy Field did not determine a cause of death, the Marine Mammal Center said. There was no word on the cause of death for the other whales.
According to the center, biologists have observed gray whales in poor body condition during their annual migration since 2019.
Increased numbers of gray whales have since been sighted in the San Francisco Bay as the population continues their northerly migration to cool, food-rich Arctic waters, the center said, adding that climate change and overfishing have led to reduced prey availability for whales.
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