Mystery deepens as another dead whale washes ashore in Southern California

A dormant 50-foot grey whale washed ashore successful Huntington Beach connected Friday, according to officials with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.

The origin of decease of the young big pistillate is not yet known, said Glenn Gray, main enforcement of the Laguna Beach-based nonprofit. Employees of the halfway performed a necropsy of the assemblage connected Saturday morning.

The whale had nary signs of carnal injury, Gray said. Such marks are typically seen if a whale is struck by a boat, bitten by a shark oregon entangled successful sportfishing gear.

Samples from the assemblage person been sent to a laboratory for testing.

“It whitethorn instrumentality a mates weeks,” helium said. “We’ll stock with the nationalist what we know.”

Scientists accidental grey whales person been dying successful ample numbers this year.

At slightest 70 whales person died since the opening of the twelvemonth successful the lagoons of Baja California successful Mexico, wherever they spell successful the winter, according to Steven Swartz, a marine idiosyncratic who studies grey whales.

The whales are present headed northbound to their summertime feeding grounds successful the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.

In caller weeks, 3 grey whales person died successful San Francisco Bay.

Researchers aren’t definite wherefore higher numbers of whales are dying. The bodies of immoderate of the dormant whales person appeared depleted and malnourished, starring immoderate scientists to judge the occupation could beryllium a deficiency of food.

Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles section of the American Cetacean Society’s grey whale census astatine Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the fig of whales she and her volunteers person observed migrating northbound this outpouring and swimming southbound this past wintertime is the lowest connected record.

Earlier this month, a minke whale that spent days swimming successful Long Beach Harbor died, contempt efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it backmost to deeper waters.

Investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were trying to find what caused the minke whale’s death.