by Scientists investigate a strong increase in the number of whales killed in the San Francisco Bay in 2025, even if the local walschots have difficulty recovering from a massive death.
The California Academy of Sciences said on Monday that the researchers had registered the death of 21 gray whales, two non -identified Bartenwale and a Minke whale in waters near San Francisco this year in 2019 and 15 in 2021.
The researchers also reported an “unusually high” number of gray whale sightings in the region, with more than 30 people only confirmed six in 2024.
“This youngest graywal was a little surprised because it is late in the season and the fact that we have not sighted the species in the bay for almost two weeks,” said Kathi George, director of the Cetacean Conservation Biology in the Marine Malito in the nearby Sausalito.
“It shows signs of concern for this population when it goes into the future … We know that climate change changes the marine conditions and the available availability of the prey for this whales in the Arctic.”
Researchers recently reported an “unusually high” number of gray whale sightings in the region (Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images).
A young male gray whale in Kirby Cove, on the Marin -Landland near San Francisco (Marjorie Cox / the Marine -Mammalierzentrum)
Eight of the gray whales were probably killed by vascular strokes, said the academy, but the cause of death for the others was uncertain. It was also not clear why so many whales in the Bay Area were visible this year.
The gray whale populations in the North Pacific still declined from an estimated 45 percent between 2019 and 2023, where almost 700 whales died along the west coast of North America.
A gray whale injury (Noaa fishing)
This episode, which is known by scientists as an “unusual mortality event”, is said to have reduced the whale numbers from around 20,500 in 2019 to just over 14,500 in 2023.
A study in 2023 showed that melting arctic sea ice extended the death compared to previous such events by disturbing the food chain of algae and plankton, on which gray whales ultimately depend.
Gray whales are high social animals (AFP via Getty Images)
Gray whales are large, high social filter feed that hike on the west coast of North America and from hiking and thousands of kilometers from the summer feeding area near Alaska to their winter breeding areas before West Mexico.
Once also in the Atlantic, they were hunted in the 19th century in large numbers of people because of their bubble.
Now they exist in two populations in the northwest and in the northeast of the Pacific, whereby the former group is officially endangered.
