July 21, 1999. Copyright, 1999, Graphic News. All rights reserved

MYSTERY OF DYING WHALES
By Julie Mullins

LONDON, July 21, Graphic News:  ROTTING CARCASSES of starved gray whales are washing up on beaches along North AmericaÕs west coast in record numbers this year.
Since January, 155 whales have been washed ashore as they make their annual 6,000-mile (9,650km) migration from their winter retreat in the warm lagoons of Baja California to the feeding grounds of the Bering Sea.
Marine experts are divided as to the reason. Some believe a shrinking food supply, caused by climate changes such as El Ni–o or ocean warming may be to blame, while others think a steady increase in whale numbers, fighting for the same amount of food, is the more likely cause. ItÕs likely that both are contributing factors.
An oddly positive aspect of this -- if the whales have indeed outgrown their food supply -- is that it would indicate a spectacular recovery for a species on the brink of extinction early this century and still on the endangered list as late as 1994.
Gray whales eat the bulk of their food -- small crustaceans or tube worms sucked off the ocean floor -- during the summer months spent in the Bering Sea, storing energy in their blubber before returning to Baja to breed.
The population is now estimated at 26,600, up from a low of 2,000 at the turn of the century when commercial whalers almost wiped them out for fuel, soap, pet food and whalebone corsets. The species became protected in 1947.
ÒWe may be seeing the first large whale population to reach carrying capacity after whaling,Ó said John Calambokidis, senior research biologist at Cascadia Research in Olympia, Washington. ÒThey reached the limit of the food supply.Ó
Pollution, often the first suspect when whale deaths occur in large numbers, is not thought to be a significant factor in this case.
The trail of carcasses maps the whalesÕ northward journey -- 65 whales were washed up in Mexico early in the year, followed by 37 in California, 24 in Washington and Oregon, seven in British Columbia and 22 in Alaska. Just 80 whales were washed up throughout the whole of 1998.
Moreover, as ocean currents, wind and other factors play a part in determining whether a carcass actually makes it to a beach, the number of bodies found represents only a fraction of the actual deaths, estimated to be 800 this year.
Many of the emaciated whales, some off which wandered off course into inlets like Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay, were adult females, more susceptible than males to malnutrition.
Researchers say it will take time before they can fully explain the whale deaths. If the food shortage is related to climatic conditions, the number of fatalities will decline in the future. But if the population has expanded beyond the food supply, more whale carcasses will litter the coast.
Meanwhile occupants of the often very expensive real estate to be found bordering west coast beaches may have had occasion to contend with the less than pleasant smell of a rotting corpse measuring around 45 feet (14m) in length and weighing up to 40 tons.
As one senior life guard from San Diego, required to dispose of one such heap of putrescent flesh, commented, Òit takes about three showers in turpentine to get the smell off your skin.Ó
ENDS/
Source: Associated Press