Editor's note: Some photos depict a rotting whale's corpse. Viewer discretion is advised.
Four whales have washed up dead on the Kodiak archipelago in the past week. One was reported over the weekend of July 11 and three were reported on Monday July 13. Two of these whales are on the road system: one on Surfer’s Beach near Pasagshak, and one in Chiniak on the coast past Chiniak lagoon.
According to Matt Van Daele, the natural resources director at the Sun’aq Tribe, at least three of them are gray whales, including the one on Surfer’s Beach and the one in Chiniak. The fourth has not been determined.
“This Surfer’s Beach whale decomposed very quickly," Van Daele said. "It would have been an excellent candidate for the full necropsy, but with the summer that we’ve been having in Kodiak, it was just too far gone, even when it washed up.”
But he said next week they are hoping to determine what caused the other whales to die, and confirm whether the fourth whale is a gray whale or a humpback.
Van Daele said in total six dead gray whales have been confirmed on the archipelago so far this year. Of those, he said at least three were young males.
In previous summers, Van Daele said the stranded gray whales they found this time of year mostly died either of starvation or killer whale attacks. At least one of the whales found earlier this summer appeared to have died from a killer whale attack.
“The emaciated whales, in the past, it seems like they only have so much gas in the tank before they get here to Kodiak, and then just don't have enough to keep going farther north," Van Daele said. "Also, being weakened, not having the ability to evade the orcas is another thing.”
Record numbers of gray whales have also died elsewhere in Alaska and along the west coast this summer, likely due to a lack of food resources in the Bering Sea.
Over the past few years, more gray whales have been coming into Kodiak than normal, which Van Daele said might be a response to this lack of resources elsewhere. He said they’re still waiting for more data, but it looks like there are also more whales than normal this year.
“The good news is that we still have a lot of live, happy, healthy gray whales off the coast, and they did show up here about two to three weeks later this year," he said.
Van Daele added that they’re still researching why the whales showed up later this year, and why they’ve seen so many young males stranding.
The reports from community members about the gray whale strandings have been vital to their work, Van Daele said, particularly this week with so many strandings at once. With fuel prices still high as a result of the war in Iran, he said the Sun’aq Tribe has not been able to do the boat surveys they normally do, so reports of stranded whales off the of the road system are especially important this summer.
Van Daele said anyone can report stranded whales or other marine mammals in distress by calling NOAA’s Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network Hotline at (877) 925-7773. And if people want to get involved with whale response, he said there is a workshop happening on Wednesday July 22 at the Sun’aq Tribal Hall. For more information, contact matt@sunaq.org or sadie.wright@noaa.gov.
