LA JOLLA, Calif. (KGTV) – A young gray whale washed up on the shore of La Jolla late Thursday, several yards from the popular Marine Room restaurant.
Sarah Mesnick, science liaison with NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, confirmed that as of Friday morning the whale was deceased. She also said it's a juvenile gray whale, about a year old, 24 feet long, and it weighs anywhere between 11-15 thousand pounds.
Mesnick said the juvenile whale already appeared to be emaciated and not in good health.
As of 11 a.m. Friday, San Diego Fire-Rescue's Lifeguard division had the whale loaded onto a truck and planned to transport it to one of NOAA's center for a necropsy to determine the cause of death.
Mesnick said the necropsy will also help NOAA scientists learn more about the gray whale population along its California coastline, as well as the ocean's current patterns.
The necropsy was finished late Friday.
As for the results, Mesnick said, "The team found that the animal was male and confirmed it was thin and in poor condition. There were no signs of human impact. We took a large suite of samples for further analysis. These will help us further investigate health, life history, and support partner research studies. These include studies on whale hearing and samples for the Frozen Zoo, at the SD Zoo."
Studies on NOAA shows that between 2022-2023, there have been 24 gray whale strandings along California's coast alone.
However, Mesnick said, "The Gray whale population has been suffering from what's called an 'Unusual Mortality Event' (UME). A few years ago there were a number of Gray whale that were stranding, and many of them look at, but what we see is a decline and that we're not seeing that many now."
Many locals came out to see the stunning site of the juvenile gray whale between Thursday and Friday.
Among them was photographer Matthias Scheer.
"I just wanna know what happened what happened to it," Scheer said.
Scheer had been taking pictures of the juvenile, gray whale since late Thursday up to the moment it took its last breath.
"It was still alive. You could hear it blowing. You could feel the breath as it was trying to struggle to breathe," Scheer said emotionally. "I had to stop just cause I wanted it to live."
Scheer used his drone to capture images of the whale being extracted from the beach Friday morning as well.
To see Scheer's work, click here: https://www.instagram.com/bigbluephotoboat/
