Latest news with #GrayWhaleResearchinMexico
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Gray whales are dying again off the Pacific Coast. Scientists look at if climate change is to blame
Dozens of gray whales are dying in Pacific Ocean waters again this year and human-caused climate change may be to blame, scientists say. At least 70 whales have died since the start of the year along Mexico's Baja California peninsula, marine scientist Dr. Steven Swartz told The Los Angeles Times this week. Swartz's Gray Whale Research in Mexico — an international team of researchers who study the whales in Laguna San Ignacio — have been observing the gentle giants since the 1970s. He noted that only five mother and calf pairs were identified in Laguna San Ignacio, where wintering whales gather. 'In the winterbreeding and calvinglagoons ofBaja California, however, counts of female calf pairs were the lowest recorded since our abundance surveys in these winter aggregation and breeding areas began in 2006, suggesting a major decline in the reproductive capacity of this population in recent years during the unusual mortality event,' an annual report from his group said. Swartz's findings regarding gray whale mortality and reproduction come as several gray whales have recently died in the San Francisco Bay Area during their migration north toward Alaska and their Arctic feeding grounds. One of the whales was described by the Marine Mammal Center as emaciated. Notably, the number of whale strandings tends to increase as whales head north in March and May, according to the California Academy of Sciences. The recent strandings also follow an unusual mortality event that was declared in 2019, with hundreds of the Eastern North Pacific Gray Whales beached themselves along the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said whale autopsies found nutrition to be a common cause of death. But, the cause of the deaths was never definitively established and the investigation was closed in 2023 as the number of strandings fell. Past research published that year found that previous mass deaths may have been tied to Arctic sea ice loss. Last winter saw the lowest levels on record for Arctic winter sea ice. Sea ice cover can block whales' paths, but a loss of sea ice that hosts algae the whales' eat could be to blame for population hits, Joshua Stewart, an associate professor at Oregon State University and the author of that study, told The Independent. 'It doesn't feel like too much of a mystery to me,' he said of the recent gray whale deaths, adding they are linked to migratory patterns. The whales journey some 6,000 miles along the Pacific Coast to the Arctic where they feed in the shallow basin and the seafloor. They're specifically looking for small crustaceans that live in the sediment. However, the health of those ecosystems is dictated by algae that grow on the underside of sea ice. When the algae dies, it sinks and reintroduces nutrients to the seafloor. The fertilized ecosystems attract migratory species from all over the world. But if the algae don't make it to the sea floor, thanks to the ice melting earlier, its nutrients are released closer to the surface. Ultimately, there's less food for the gray whales. 'And, those Arctic ecosystems are some of the fastest-warming ecosystem on the planet and they're experiencing really profound changes right now — major regime shifts that are moving away from that benthic productivity to more water column productivity, which could be good for some other whale species, but seems to be extremely bad for gray whales,' he explained. Gray whales have been much less impacted by human effects such as vessel strikes than other large whale species, Stewart noted, pointing out that federal research is critical to understanding all factors that affect the nearly 50-foot-long creatures. 'So, it seems like almost all of the population fluctuations are being driven by conditions on their feeding grounds in the Arctic. And, some of that is natural variability,' he said. While gray whales are adaptable and have lived through previous climatic changes — although nothing as rapid as the current changes — Stewart said that there has been a 'reproductive failure' and a decline in abundance since 2019. Skinny whales stop investing energy in reproduction, and birth rates drop severely. 'We have exceptionally low reproductive rates every year for the last six years now. And, that's the difference here, is that this effect is lingering. It's not a short-term variability that we've seen in these previous mortality events. This time, it's consistent. The population has continued to decline. The birth rates haven't recovered. Whales are still skinny, and I think that that's a reflection of really dramatic regime shifts in those Arctic feed grounds, which just means there's not enough food to support as many gray whales as we had five or 10 years ago,' he said. Stewart said the status of gray whales is a 'harbinger' of what's to come for marine species. 'In my view, at this point, we're seeing the effects of climate change on some of these big, charismatic, economically important, culturally important species that we as a society value quite a bit and which we're going to have to deal with massive declines as a result of our actions,' he said.
The Independent
09-04-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Gray whales are dying again off the Pacific Coast. Scientists look at if climate change is to blame
Dozens of gray whales are dying in Pacific Ocean waters again this year and human-caused climate change may be to blame, scientists say. At least 70 whales have died since the start of the year along Mexico's Baja California peninsula, marine scientist Dr. Steven Swartz told The Los Angeles Times this week. Swartz's Gray Whale Research in Mexico — an international team of researchers who study the whales in Laguna San Ignacio — have been observing the gentle giants since the 1970s. He noted that only five mother and calf pairs were identified in Laguna San Ignacio, where wintering whales gather. 'In the winter breeding and calving lagoons of Baja California, however, counts of female calf pairs were the lowest recorded since our abundance surveys in these winter aggregation and breeding areas began in 2006, suggesting a major decline in the reproductive capacity of this population in recent years during the unusual mortality event,' an annual report from his group said. Swartz's findings regarding gray whale mortality and reproduction come as several gray whales have recently died in the San Francisco Bay Area during their migration north toward Alaska and their Arctic feeding grounds. One of the whales was described by the Marine Mammal Center as emaciated. Notably, the number of whale strandings tends to increase as whales head north in March and May, according to the California Academy of Sciences. The recent strandings also follow an unusual mortality event that was declared in 2019, with hundreds of the Eastern North Pacific Gray Whales beached themselves along the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said whale autopsies found nutrition to be a common cause of death. But, the cause of the deaths was never definitively established and the investigation was closed in 2023 as the number of strandings fell. Past research published that year found that previous mass deaths may have been tied to Arctic sea ice loss. Last winter saw the lowest levels on record for Arctic winter sea ice. Sea ice cover can block whales' paths, but a loss of sea ice that hosts algae the whales' eat could be to blame for population hits, Joshua Stewart, an associate professor at Oregon State University and the author of that study, told The Independent. 'It doesn't feel like too much of a mystery to me,' he said of the recent gray whale deaths, adding they are linked to migratory patterns. The whales journey some 6,000 miles along the Pacific Coast to the Arctic where they feed in the shallow basin and the seafloor. They're specifically looking for small crustaceans that live in the sediment. However, the health of those ecosystems is dictated by algae that grow on the underside of sea ice. When the algae die, it sinks and reintroduces nutrients to the seafloor. The fertilized ecosystems attract migratory species from all over the world. But if the algae don't make it to the sea floor, thanks to the ice melting earlier, its nutrients are released closer to the surface. Ultimately, there's less food for the gray whales. 'And, those Arctic ecosystems are some of the fastest-warming ecosystem on the planet and they're experiencing really profound changes right now — major regime shifts that are moving away from that benthic productivity to more water column productivity, which could be good for some other whale species, but seems to be extremely bad for gray whales,' he explained. Gray whales have been much less impacted by human effects such as vessel strikes than other large whale species, Stewart noted, pointing out that federal research is critical to understanding all factors that affect the nearly 50-foot-long creatures. 'So, it seems like almost all of the population fluctuations are being driven by conditions on their feeding grounds in the Arctic. And, some of that is natural variability,' he said. While gray whales are adaptable and have lived through previous climatic changes — although nothing as rapid as the current changes — Stewart said that there has been a 'reproductive failure' and a decline in abundance since 2019. Skinny whales stop investing energy in reproduction, and birth rates drop severely. 'We have exceptionally low reproductive rates every year for the last six years now. And, that's the difference here, is that this effect is lingering. It's not a short-term variability that we've seen in these previous mortality events. This time, it's consistent. The population has continued to decline. The birth rates haven't recovered. Whales are still skinny, and I think that that's a reflection of really dramatic regime shifts in those Arctic feed grounds, which just means there's not enough food to support as many gray whales as we had five or 10 years ago,' he said. Stewart said the status of gray whales is a 'harbinger' of what's to come for marine species. 'In my view, at this point, we're seeing the effects of climate change on some of these big, charismatic, economically important, culturally important species that we as a society value quite a bit and which we're going to have to deal with massive declines as a result of our actions,' he said.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Gray whales are dying off the Pacific Coast again, and scientists aren't sure why.
Gray whales are dying in large numbers, again. At least 70 whales have perished since the start of the year in the shallow, protected lagoons of Mexico's Baja California peninsula where the animals have congregated for eons to calf, nurse and breed, said Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who has studied gray whales since 1977. And only five mother-calf pairs were identified in Laguna San Ignacio, where most of the wintering whales tend to congregate, Swartz said. That's the lowest number of mother-calf pairs ever observed in the lagoon, according to annual reports from Gray Whale Research in Mexico, an international team of researchers — co-founded by Swartz — that has been observing gray whales in Laguna San Ignacio since the late 1970s. The whales are now headed north. In just the last two weeks, three gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay, one of which was described by veterinarians and pathologists at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito as skinny and malnutritioned. Evaluations on the two other deaths are still being conducted. Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society's gray whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the number of whales she and her volunteers have observed migrating north this spring and swimming south this past winter is the lowest on record. "We didn't see a single southbound calf, which has never happened in 40 years," she said. Schulman-Janiger and other researchers aren't sure why the whales are dying, although she and others believe it could be from lack of food based on the depleted conditions in which some of the whales have been found. Eastern North Pacific gray whales cruise the Pacific coastline every year as they migrate 6,000 miles north from the Baja peninsula to their summer feeding grounds in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. There, the leviathans gorge themselves on small crustaceans and amphipods that live in the muddy sediment of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas, before they head back south to loll, cavort and mingle in balmy Mexican waters. The animals migrate through a gantlet of perils as they navigate some of the world's most heavily shipped regions, maneuver through discarded fishing lines and gear, dodge pods of killer whales waiting to tear apart defenseless calves, and swim through waters polluted with microplastics, toxic chemicals and poisonous algae. Most of the time, the bulk of them make the journey just fine. But in 2019, large numbers of the whales began to die. Starting that spring, biologists at the Laguna San Ignacio research station recorded roughly 80 dead whales in Mexican waters, and just 41 mother-calf pairs in the lagoon. They also noticed — using photographs and drone imagery — that roughly a quarter of the animals were "skinny." "You can see it in photographs," said Schulman-Janiger, who described skinny whales as looking like they had necks because a thick fat pad that typically covers the area behind the skull is gone. "And you can see their scapulae," she said, referring to the animals' shoulder blades. "You shouldn't see a whale's shoulder blades," she said. Then, as the hungry whales migrated north in 2019, large numbers began stranding on the beaches of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. By the end of that year, researchers had documented 216 dead whales on the beaches and near shore waters of the North American Pacific coastline. A federal investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into what is known as an unexplained mortality event was launched in 2019. The investigation allowed for scientists across multiple disciplines and institutions to gather and share knowledge to determine the cause of the die-off. The cause of the deaths was never definitively established, and the investigation was closed in 2023 as the number of strandings fell into a range considered normal. Many researchers concluded a change in Arctic and sub-Arctic food availability (via massive changes in climate) was the driving factor. Their assessment was supported by the observations of malnutrition and skinniness in the whales and similar events and observations in other Arctic animals, including birds, seals, crabs and fish. They also noticed that many of the whales had started feeding in areas — such as San Francisco Bay and the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors — where such behaviors had never before been seen. In the last two weeks, several gray whales have been observed in San Francisco Bay, including a near record high of nine on a single day. Reports of feeding behaviors had also been made, including off the city of Pacifica. Asked whether the researchers at NOAA are noting these concerning observations and anticipating the possibility of another die-off, Michael Milstein, an agency spokesman, said the number of strandings along the Pacific coast is still low — just seven in California and one in Washington. The annual average is about 35. He said it was too early in the whales' northward journey to know for sure. John Calambokidis, senior research biologist and co-founder of the Cascadia Research Collective, a marine mammal research center based in Olympia, Wash., agreed with Milstein: "We are just entering our main period of strandings (April to June) so a little early to draw any conclusions." And despite Schulman-Janiger's concerns, she too said it is early — and that La Niña ocean conditions may be partly to blame for the low number of animals observed thus far. She said reports from Mexico indicate many gray whales migrated farther south than they typically do, and have been seen swimming around the Gulf of California — off the coasts of Loreto, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta. She said that is good news if the low counts are due to the whales just being late. But worrisome if already food-stressed whales are having to tack on an additional 800 miles to their journey. "It's a very weird year for gray whales, and a concerning year given their body condition, the strandings and the very low calf estimates," she said. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
08-04-2025
- Science
- Los Angeles Times
Gray whales are dying off the Pacific Coast again, and scientists aren't sure why.
Gray whales are dying in large numbers, again. At least 70 whales have perished since the start of the year in the shallow, protected lagoons of Mexico's Baja California peninsula where the animals have congregated for eons to calf, nurse and breed, said Steven Swartz, a marine scientist who has studied gray whales since 1977. And only five mother-calf pairs were identified in Laguna San Ignacio, where most of the wintering whales tend to congregate, Swartz said. That's the lowest number of mother-calf pairs ever observed in the lagoon, according to annual reports from Gray Whale Research in Mexico, an international team of researchers — co-founded by Swartz — that has been observing gray whales in Laguna San Ignacio since the late 1970s. The whales are now headed north. In just the last two weeks, three gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay, one of which was described by veterinarians and pathologists at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito as skinny and malnutritioned. Evaluations on the two other deaths are still being conducted. Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who has led the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society's gray whale census at Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979, said the number of whales she and her volunteers have observed migrating north this spring and swimming south this past winter is the lowest on record. 'We didn't see a single southbound calf, which has never happened in 40 years,' she said. Schulman-Janiger and other researchers aren't sure why the whales are dying, although she and others believe it could be from lack of food based on the depleted conditions in which some of the whales have been found. Eastern North Pacific gray whales cruise the Pacific coastline every year as they migrate 6,000 miles north from the Baja peninsula to their summer feeding grounds in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. There, the leviathans gorge themselves on small crustaceans and amphipods that live in the muddy sediment of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas, before they head back south to loll, cavort and mingle in balmy Mexican waters. The animals migrate through a gantlet of perils as they navigate some of the world's most heavily shipped regions, maneuver through discarded fishing lines and gear, dodge pods of killer whales waiting to tear apart defenseless calves, and swim through waters polluted with microplastics, toxic chemicals and poisonous algae. Most of the time, the bulk of them make the journey just fine. But in 2019, large numbers of the whales began to die. Starting that spring, biologists at the Laguna San Ignacio research station recorded roughly 80 dead whales in Mexican waters, and just 41 mother-calf pairs in the lagoon. They also noticed — using photographs and drone imagery — that roughly a quarter of the animals were 'skinny.' 'You can see it in photographs,' said Schulman-Janiger, who described skinny whales as looking like they had necks because a thick fat pad that typically covers the area behind the skull is gone. 'And you can see their scapulae,' she said, referring to the animals' shoulder blades. 'You shouldn't see a whale's shoulder blades,' she said. Then, as the hungry whales migrated north in 2019, large numbers began stranding on the beaches of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. By the end of that year, researchers had documented 216 dead whales on the beaches and near shore waters of the North American Pacific coastline. A federal investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into what is known as an unexplained mortality event was launched in 2019. The investigation allowed for scientists across multiple disciplines and institutions to gather and share knowledge to determine the cause of the die-off. The cause of the deaths was never definitively established, and the investigation was closed in 2023 as the number of strandings fell into a range considered normal. Many researchers concluded a change in Arctic and sub-Arctic food availability (via massive changes in climate) was the driving factor. Their assessment was supported by the observations of malnutrition and skinniness in the whales and similar events and observations in other Arctic animals, including birds, seals, crabs and fish. They also noticed that many of the whales had started feeding in areas — such as San Francisco Bay and the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors — where such behaviors had never before been seen. In the last two weeks, several gray whales have been observed in San Francisco Bay, including a near record high of nine on a single day. Reports of feeding behaviors had also been made, including off the city of Pacifica. Asked whether the researchers at NOAA are noting these concerning observations and anticipating the possibility of another die-off, Michael Milstein, an agency spokesman, said the number of strandings along the Pacific coast is still low — just seven in California and one in Washington. The annual average is about 35. He said it was too early in the whales' northward journey to know for sure. John Calambokidis, senior research biologist and co-founder of the Cascadia Research Collective, a marine mammal research center based in Olympia, Wash., agreed with Milstein: 'We are just entering our main period of strandings (April to June) so a little early to draw any conclusions.' And despite Schulman-Janiger's concerns, she too said it is early — and that La Niña ocean conditions may be partly to blame for the low number of animals observed thus far. She said reports from Mexico indicate many gray whales migrated farther south than they typically do, and have been seen swimming around the Gulf of California — off the coasts of Loreto, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta. She said that is good news if the low counts are due to the whales just being late. But worrisome if already food-stressed whales are having to tack on an additional 800 miles to their journey. 'It's a very weird year for gray whales, and a concerning year given their body condition, the strandings and the very low calf estimates,' she said.
