TILLAMOOK COUNTY, Ore. — The body of a dead humpback whale has washed up on the Oregon Coast near Manzanita.
On Monday, the 33-foot-long male whale came on shore about a mile north of the north Nehalem Jetty in Nehalem Bay State Park, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries told KGW, citing Oregon State Parks.
“That’s a smaller than adult size,” said Michael Milstein, spokesperson for NOAA. “They get up to 60 feet or so, so this is a sub-adult — it’s not full-grown.”
The humpback whale's cause of death was likely due to being struck by a vessel, according to a NOAA research team. A Thursday necropsy found "significant hemorrhaging along the right front and sides of the whale," suggesting a blunt impact force.
Vessel strikes are one of the more common causes of death for humpback whales stranded on the West Coast, according to NOAA Fisheries’ most recent stock assessment.
NOAA Fisheries' stranding team conducted an initial exam of the whale on Monday, then the full necropsy on Thursday.
“The first thing we look for is signs of a ship strike, evidence that it has been impacted or struck in some way like hemorrhaging under the skin,” said Milstein on Monday. “The next probably most common cause of death would be entanglements that we see from time to time. There’s no obvious sign of that in this case.”
The agency is asking people to not disturb the carcass and to keep pets away for safety. NOAA Fisheries stressed that it wants the best chance at determining the whale's cause of death.
Milstein added that the dead whale washed up in a nesting area to protect threatened western snowy plovers, so beach access is limited.
NOAA officials believe the whale has been dead for several days as it appears to be bloated.
There have been multiple dead whales that have beached along the Oregon Coast in the past year-and-a-half. In February, a young fin whale washed up on Sunset Beach in Warrenton, near Astoria. In January 2023, three dead whales washed up on the Oregon coast within a span of a week; two of them were gray whales, the other was a 40-foot sperm whale.
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