{"id":89181,"date":"2026-11-14T20:24:27","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T20:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/89181\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T20:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T20:24:27","slug":"gray-whales-are-starving-some-have-died-off-oregon-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/89181\/","title":{"rendered":"Gray whales are starving. Some have died off Oregon Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In<\/p>\n

In this provided image, a deceased 40-foot male Gray whale was found on the south end of Seaside Beach on April 14, 2026. <\/p>\n

Courtesy of Tiffany Boothe \/ Seaside Aquarium<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, a 40-foot gray whale floated ashore on Seaside Beach, its long tail bobbing in the ocean waves.<\/p>\n

A necropsy on Friday revealed the whale was emaciated, indicating it may have been starving. It was the third dead whale to beach off the Oregon Coast so far this year, among at least 19 that have appeared off the entire West Coast. <\/p>\n

Then on Friday, another whale was found stranded on Southwest Washington\u2019s Long Beach Peninsula.<\/p>\n

These strandings reflect the growing strain whale populations face as a warming planet affects their access to food, and more could follow in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n

Gray whales are still early in their northward migration from Mexico to their feeding grounds in the Bering Sea north of Alaska. Whatever they ate last summer needs to last them through the 12,000-mile journey. <\/p>\n

These strandings indicate those summer 2025 meals were not enough. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them are pretty undernourished, skinny, as if they haven\u2019t been eating enough,\u201d said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. \u201cIf we\u2019re seeing this many whales that are undernourished and having trouble this early in the year, what is that going to mean for the rest of the migration?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

OPB’s “First Look” is your guide to Northwest news and culture, delivered to your inbox every weekday and Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Arctic ice plays a vital role in feeding gray whales, but it\u2019s melting at an alarming rate because of global warming from burning fossil fuels. Algae clings to the bottom of the ice, then falls to the ocean floor as it melts, feeding crustaceans that eventually nourish gray whales. <\/p>\n

When there\u2019s less ice, there\u2019s less algae, fewer crustaceans, and more starving gray whales washing up along the West Coast.<\/p>\n

The whale found on the Long Beach Peninsula, a Baird\u2019s beaked whale, also mainly depends on food off the West Coast for feeding, Milstein said.<\/p>\n

Between 2019 and 2023, gray whale populations dropped from about 27,000 whales to about 13,000 during what biologists called an unusual mortality event. Gray whales appeared to be rebounding a little in 2023. <\/p>\n

But this spring\u2019s early strandings could mean this struggling species is entering another mortality event.<\/p>\n

More gray whales than usual have been spotted feeding off the West Coast, including off the Bay Area near San Francisco. Biologists think they may be seeking more food outside their usual sources, and that\u2019s putting them at risk. Many have died after being struck by vessels. <\/p>\n

Something similar may have happened earlier this year, Milstein of NOAA said, when a gray whale was spotted traveling upriver in Washington, where it died. A pod of gray whales called \u201cthe Sounders\u201d usually spends a few months in the Puget Sound to look for food.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it seems like those whales are hanging around Puget Sound longer,\u201d Milstein said. \u201cAnd in some cases, they\u2019re not even bothering to leave and swim up to the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to Washington and the Bay Area, Oregon doesn\u2019t typically see many gray whale strandings. Milstein said Oregon doesn\u2019t have as many coastal \u201cnooks and crannies\u201d as those states, where whales might explore for food.<\/p>\n

Eight whales beached off Oregon\u2019s coast last year, and none were gray whales. <\/p>\n

One was a young, live humpback whale that washed ashore near Yachats in November. People had rallied together to try saving the whale, but it eventually died. <\/p>\n

That whale was tangled in crabbing gear, but necropsies later revealed earlier signs of disease likely contributed to its death.<\/p>\n

Crabbing gear entanglements are still a major risk to whales swimming through Oregon\u2019s waters. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is considering policy changes intended to reduce whale entanglements. <\/p>\n

What to do if you find a stranded whale\"Jim<\/p>\n

Jim Rice, stranding program manager for the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, takes a sample from a deceased gray whale near Yachats, Ore., on April 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

Brian Bahouth \/ KLCC<\/p>\n

The most important thing people can do if they find a stranded whale is to leave it alone and report it to NOAA\u2019s West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Its phone number is 866-767-6114.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just really, really important whenever you see a marine mammal on the beach to give it plenty of space,\u201d said Brittany Blades, marine mammals curator at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.<\/p>\n

The aquarium\u2019s teams are sometimes called to respond to stranded whales, something that requires multiple agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be one team that is working towards figuring out how to get the whale on beach, get it back into the ocean while there\u2019s another team that is working on the animal welfare and making sure that the animal\u2019s comfortable,\u201d Blades said.<\/p>\n

Because of how complicated saving a stranded whale can be, these rescue efforts are rarely successful. If a whale dies, biologists will perform a necropsy, taking samples of the mammal for testing. They usually leave the whale on the beach to decompose naturally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this provided image, a deceased 40-foot male Gray whale was found on the south end of Seaside Beach on April 14, 2026. Courtesy of Tiffany Boothe \/ Seaside Aquarium Last Tuesday, a 40-foot gray whale floated ashore on Seaside Beach, its long tail bobbing in the ocean waves. A necropsy on Friday revealed the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4491,56655,4489,4487,4490,4488],"class_list":["post-89181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oregon","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-coast-animals-climate-and-environment","tag-oregon-dining","tag-oregon-food","tag-oregon-grocery-stores","tag-oregon-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117616670391368211","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}