A struggling young whale died after it beached itself near a popular restaurant on the La Jolla shoreline, officials said Friday.
The 24-foot gray whale — which weighed about 11,000 pounds — was likely a year or two old, and it appeared thin, according to a science liaison with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA.
“It did not appear to be in good health,” said science liaison and ecologist Sarah Mesnick at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.
The whale was towed to nearby UC San Diego for a necropsy in hopes of determining the animal’s cause of death.
“They will be able to look at how much blubber it has,” Mesnick said. “What appears on the outside may not be the same on the inside.”
The whale beached itself mid-afternoon Thursday near the Marine Room on Spindrift Drive at La Jolla Shotes, said a spokesperson for San Diego Lifeguard Services, which is part of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
The animal initially appeared to be dead, spokesperson Monica Munoz said, but as the tide rolled in, it showed signs of life.
NOAA and SeaWorld Rescue were notified. Munoz said NOAA officials at the site indicated human intervention was not safe.
“The video I saw looked like it was struggling to keep itself up,” Mesnick said. “It looked like it was struggling in the waves.”
The whale died in the shallow water about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Crews hauled it off Friday morning.
Sometimes the carcasses of beached whales are towed to sea for disposal. But in this case, the animal was newly dead, and scientists can get a good look at what may have happened to it, as well as to collect data such as what it had been eating.
The necropsy was under way by Friday afternoon, and — with an animal that large — involved a team of more than 10 people.
The young whale was may have been on the species’ annual migration between Mexico and Alaska.
The death comes as what has been dubbed an “unusual mortality event” for gray whales is coming to a close. According to NOAA, it started in 2019, when the number of gray whales that stranded themselves along the West Coast migration path hit 216.
The number has steadily dropped, and last year tallied 82. Necropsies of a subset of the beached whales showed preliminary evidence of emaciation. But the findings were not consistent among all the whales examined, according to a page on the NOAA fisheries website.
