Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
Tourists come here from around the world to watch whales. It’s common to see humpbacks leaping out of the water and fin whales slapping the waves with their flukes. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch a gray whale poking its head out of the water to scope out the surroundings. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll see a blue whale — at up to 165 tons, the largest animal on earth.
But all is not well here this year. Gray whales are dying in large numbers. Since January, at least 167 North Pacific gray whales have washed ashore dead from Mexico to Alaska. That’s probably just a fraction of the number that have actually died. Most will have sunk to the sea floor; scientists call these carcasses “whale falls.” But the number of known deaths is high enough that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared an “unusual mortality event” — a pronouncement that has sent scientists scrambling to figure out what’s going on.
Events like this are often the first warning sign that something may be seriously amiss below the waves. Particularly striking is that many of the whales washed ashore have been emaciated.
Courtesy of nytimes.com
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
