36-foot emaciated sea creature washes up on California beach. Its death is a mystery

A 36-foot emaciated sea creature washed up on a California beach, and now researchers want to know how it died.

On March 29, the Marine Mammal Center was notified by the National Park Service staff that a dead gray whale was found on Alcatraz Island, according to an April 1 news release by the Marine Mammal Center.

Researchers responded to the whale via boat and tied a buoy to its tail in order to collect skin and blubber samples and take photos, officials said.

After being seen floating under the Golden Gate Bridge, the whale eventually washed ashore at the Black Sands Beach in Golden Gate National Recreation Area, officials said.

After getting permission from the NPS, research teams conducted an animal autopsy during low tide, officials said.

There was no evidence of blunt force trauma or that the animal was hit by a boat, officials said.

It will take several weeks for the results to be processed on the whale’s cause of death, which is not known at this time, researchers said.

“While this number of gray whales in San Francisco Bay is exciting to see, it does raise concerns for both human and whale safety,” Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at the center said in the release. “Gray whales are difficult to see due to their low profile and coloration patterns that naturally blend into the bay. It’s important for all boaters to be extra vigilant and whale aware.”

An Unusual Mortality Event involving gray whales was declared in 2019, after ecosystem changes in the whale’s feeding areas caused hundreds of deaths along the Pacific Coast, the release said. Over the course of four years, officials saw a loss of more than 45 percent of the eastern North Pacific population. The UME has since been closed.

To report a dead or stranded whale in the San Francisco Bay Area, the public is asked to call the California Academy of Sciences at 415-379-5381, officials said.

This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 2:34 PM with the headline "36-foot emaciated sea creature washes up on California beach. Its death is a mystery."