45-foot gray whale washes ashore near Huntington Beach Pier
A 45-foot gray whale washed ashore near the Huntington Beach Pier on Friday afternoon.
The adult female whale was found at around 2 p.m. near Lifeguard Tower 5 and the pier, according to Pacific Marine Mammal Care officials, who performed a necropsy on the whale with assistance from the Ocean Animal Response and Research Alliance.
They could be seen near the whale on Saturday afternoon with SkyCal overhead. A large crowd had gathered around a perimeter of tape that officials used to block off the area near the whale's carcass.
"The female whale appeared to be in good body condition prior to death," said a press release from PMMC They said that while there is a domoic acid bloom occurring along the Southern California coast, gray whales do not typically feed along their migration route, nor do they usually eat filter-feeding bait fish like sardines and anchovies.
Because of this, officials do not believe the whale's cause of death is related to the current bloom.
"Additional diagnostics and analysis of samples will be performed to determine the cause of death and rule out the DA bloom definitively," PMMC's release said.
The discovery comes just about a week after a minke whale delighted crowds of people in Long Beach before it was suddenly found dead on April 7. The investigation into the whale's death remains ongoing, but some wildlife experts suggested it could be due to an ongoing domoic acid outbreak.
In February, a deceased gray whale also washed ashore near Dockweiler State Beach. That whale appeared to have bite marks consistent with a predator, wildlife officials said at the time.
