A 38-foot female gray whale washed ashore a few miles north of Yachats on Sunday.
According to Jim Rice, stranding program manager for the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, the adult female had been dead for a couple days before washing ashore. The body was bloated but intact.
“There are no obvious signs of trauma, so no obvious cause of death that's apparent right now,” Rice said, standing next to the carcass. “We are taking some samples from it today, and we will be back again tomorrow to collect some more samples.”
Between 2019 and 2023, the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population experienced an "Unusual Mortality Event" with hundreds of strandings from Alaska to Mexico. According to National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, the mortality event can be explained by a warming ocean and a resulting shortage of food in the Arctic, where the whales spend most of the summer months foraging.
“I suspect that this whale was probably dealing with a lot of the same issues that other gray whales have been dealing with since 2019 since the Unusual Mortality Event began,” Rice explained. “A lot of these animals are not getting enough to eat, basically, and they're nutritionally stressed.
“This particular animal, I can't necessarily tell you its nutritional state, but it would fall within the parameters of the overall picture that we're seeing of gray whales succumbing on the entire west coast, from Mexico up to Alaska.”
Rice added that a necroscopy can be inconclusive.
State park rangers will bury the whale once Rice is done collecting samples, which is customary.
“We appreciate the interest that these whales generate with people, and we are certainly concerned about the health of these whales. We’re trying to do our best to better understand that,” Rice said. “And we appreciate it when people give us the room we need to do the work we're doing on the beach.”
In November 2025, a 25-foot juvenile humpback whale was euthanized after becoming stranded near Yachats. Last month, a dead gray whale washed up a beach near Florence.
