Community Environment

Gray whale that washed up on Fox Island likely was hit by boat

A gray whale found dead last weekend on Fox Island likely had been struck by a boat. But even before that, it probably wasn’t doing very well.

Scientists with the Cascadia Research Collective and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted a thorough examination and necropsy of the gray whale on Tuesday, April 4. Cascadia research biologist John Calambokidis said the exam showed signs of “blunt force trauma.”

Cascadia Research Collective provided this photo of a gray whale carcass that washed up on a Fox Island beach on Saturday, April 2.

“Even though the whale was malnourished and that probably played a role in why it was down here and not doing well,” Calambokidis said, “the final blow was probably some sort of vessel strike. That caused some sort of acute injury that was the final cause of death.”

Found on northwest side of Fox Island

The carcass of the 12.5-meter adult male gray whale washed ashore on the northwest side of Fox Island on Saturday, April 1. Researchers removed the body and conducted the examination at an unknown location.

Witnesses previously reported seeing the whale, described as “emaciated,” around the South Puget Sound in the past few weeks. Witnesses last saw it alive in Mayo Cove, near Penrose State Park on the Key Peninsula, on March 27.

The very fact that it was in south Puget Sound is an indication that things weren’t going well for the beleaguered gray.

Too far south for a healthy whale

The whale was an Eastern North Pacific gray, Calambokidis said. The population migrates in the spring from breeding grounds off Mexico to feeding grounds off Alaska. This time of year, those whales are at the end of a long period of fasting.

But it wasn’t one of the “Sounders,” a subset of the Eastern North Pacific population that comes into the northern Puget Sound in the spring to feed. This gray should have bypassed Puget Sound entirely and continued north.

Even the Sounders don’t typically come this far south in Puget Sound.

“This is an unusual area to have normal, healthy gray whales,” Calambokidis said.

Gray whales that come this far south are typically in “poor condition,” he added. “Many of them end up dead. In that sense, it fist a little bit of a pattern that we’ve seen in past years.”

Cascadia Research Collective provided this photo of a gray whale carcass that washed up on a Fox Island beach on Saturday, April 2.