What’s Killing These Fin Whales?

Photo credit: M/V Kennicott crew/NOAA via Alaska Dispatch News

Scientist and conservationist are stunned and alarmed at the deaths of fin whales along the coast of Alaska. And they don’t know what’s causing the death of these whales. 

The first dead whale was reported on May 23, with other boaters and pilots reporting additional finds over the next two weeks. Given the reports and photo evidence, researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have put the death toll at nine, and say the carcasses were all spotted within a fairly small area.

Kate Wynne, a UAF professor and Alaska Sea Grant marine mammal specialist told the Alaska Dispatch News: “We rarely see more than one fin whale carcass every couple of years.”

Wynne added, the recent rash of dead whale discoveries is “mysterious.”

Fin whales are massive, growing to more than 70 feet long as adults and weighing 45 tons, making them the second-largest whale species, according to NOAA. They migrate every summer to Alaska waters, including the Gulf of Alaska, Prince William Sound and the Chukchi Sea, and filter the tiny fish they eat through the baleen in their mouths.

The current theory on the cause of death is a harmful algal bloom, said Bree Witteveen, a UAF Sea Grant marine mammal specialist working with Wynne on the investigation.

“It’s definitely a suspect,” she said in a telephone interview with the Dispatch. But pinpointing cause of death for the marine mammals could be difficult, “even if we have evidence of a harmful algal bloom,” she said.

“We honestly don’t know,” she said. “We probably won’t ever get a definitive answer.”

Check out the full story from the Alaska Dispatch News.