219 Gray Whales Washed Up Dead On N. American West Coast In 2019: "Eaten Alive" By Lice

[hatrack]

The tail of a male grey whale that stranded near Victoria, B.C. in April 2019, with skin eaten by an infestation of cyamids, or whale lice. Photo: Fisheries and Oceans Canada

The first grey whale found dead in B.C. last year was in such rough shape that someone called to report it was tangled up in a big pink buoy.

The pink wasn’t plastic, officials learned when they arrived to tow the skinny male to shore near Victoria for a necropsy last April. It was the animal’s own tail, eaten raw by whale lice.

Two weeks later, another, off Tofino. Then the islands of Haida Gwaii, where a total of six would wash ashore this year. The epic migration the whales make every spring — more than 10,000 kilometres from breeding lagoons in Mexico to a summer feeding in the Bering Sea — had turned deadly.

“It was quite disturbing to see,” said Paul Cottrell, regional marine mammal co-ordinator with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “When they become compromised, their immune system is obviously not able to deal with that, and they get eaten alive.”


Grey whale strandings by month in 2019 compared with 2001-2018 averages. Data include California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Data not available by month for strandings in B.C. or Mexico. B.C. saw 11 strandings in 2019; Mexico had 81. Graphic: NOAA / CBC News

EDIT

https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/12/in-2019-214-grey-whales-washed-up-dead-on-the-west-coast-of-north-america-they-get-eaten-alive.html

[dewsgirl]

1. What a horrifying way to go.😳😭

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. Makes me wonder if ocean warming is causing

a proliferation of the whale lice.

[dewsgirl]

3. I hate to imagine what we will see in the future.😭

[hatrack]

4. Or starvation, making it impossible for the whales to fight off the infestation . . .

.

[Beringia]

5. Awful