A gray whale washed up on the southern end of Kodiak\u2019s road system, June 6, 2025. (Brian Venua\/KMXT)<\/p>\n
Listen to this story:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/media.ktoo.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/08GrayDeath-WEB-.mp3<\/a><\/p>\n Pacific gray whales are washing ashore in high numbers this year. <\/p>\n Their deaths are part of an overall population decline linked to climate change<\/a>, and some whale advocates want to relist the species under the Endangered Species Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 145 Pacific gray whales have been found dead on beaches<\/a> so far this year, including 13 in Alaska. Last year, 179 gray whales were found stranded, including 30 in Alaska.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rick Steiner is a retired University of Alaska marine conservation professor in Anchorage who advocates on behalf of the whales. He said not all dead whales end up on beaches.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a high mortality rate, and of course, the ones that wash ashore are only maybe 10% of the whales that are dying,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, NOAA scientists estimated the eastern North Pacific population of gray whales at around 13,000<\/a> \u2014 less than half of a high of about 27,000 animals a decade ago. The agency hasn\u2019t yet released its population estimate for this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Gray whales faced what scientists call an \u201cunusual mortality event\u201d between 2019 and 2023, marked by low birth rates and 690<\/a> gray whale strandings. When scientists investigated their deaths, starvation and vessel strikes<\/a> were common.\u00a0<\/p>\n Studies have tied their starvation to the ways climate change disrupts the Arctic food web<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The whales migrate thousands of miles from Baja California to the Arctic each spring to spend the summer feasting on tiny crustaceans at the bottom of the ocean.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Arctic sea ice melts in the spring, algae that thrives on the ice suddenly drops to the sea floor. That feeds the crustaceans, which feed the whales. As Arctic sea ice shrinks, so does the feast.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, told KTOO that the agency would only consider declaring another \u201cunusual mortality event\u201d<\/a> if there were new reasons why so many whales have turned up dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, elevated strandings have continued, but all indications are that the causes remain the same,\u201d he said in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n In recent years, coastal waters near Kodiak<\/a> and Sitka<\/a> have been seeing more gray whales than they used to \u2014 hundreds instead of dozens. Scientists suspect they\u2019re looking for new sources of food.\u00a0<\/p>\n Steiner said there\u2019s some evidence gray whales can shift their diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSwitching from the benthic little bugs, the amphipods that live in the seabed sediment, to small fishes like Arctic cod up in the water column,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But he said there are ways to help them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe way to do that is to relist them on the Endangered Species Act, provide the management tools that NOAA needs in order to give these guys the best chance of making it through this climate bottleneck,\u201d Steiner said.<\/p>\n The species was removed<\/a> from the list in 1994. Last August, Steiner petitioned<\/a> NOAA to relist the gray whale, which would offer the species more legal protections and recovery efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Typically, NOAA takes 90 days after a petition is filed to decide whether to pursue listing the species or not, but it\u2019s been almost a year. <\/p>\n Steiner said if NOAA doesn\u2019t propose relisting the species next month, the issue will end up in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n Milstein said in an email that NOAA is still evaluating the petition and does not have a timeline on its decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A gray whale washed up on the southern end of Kodiak\u2019s road system, June 6, 2025. 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