A dead whale washed up in Alameda early on the morning of Sunday, April 20. The hulking mammal attracted a slew of onlookers along the beach, and even some paddlers in the water. The exposed gray skin acted as a place to land for seagulls throughout the day.
According to Alameda Post Publisher Adam Gillitt, who was at Crown Memorial State Beach on Sunday afternoon, the whale was towed offshore about 50 feet into the water and marked with a buoy. The type of whale was not identified as of Sunday. Update 11:45 a.m. April 21: Photographer Stephanie Penn returned to the scene on Monday and informed the Post that the whale was determined by the Marine Mammal Center to be a female grey whale measuring 43 feet long.
According to the Marine Mammal Center, the California Academy of Sciences and East Bay Regional Parks were able to arrange for the whale to be towed Monday afternoon by a private towing service to Angel Island State Park for a future necropsy (animal autopsy). The center also noted that it is suspected that this whale is the same dead gray whale that was first reported Thursday morning, April 17.
“That individual was first observed floating in the bay alongside the interior rock wall adjacent to the USS Hornet Museum,” said a MMC representative. “A team from the Center took initial skin and blubber samples via a research vessel on Friday morning, April 18, and identified the whale as an adult female. As of this morning (Monday), the Center can confirm the whale is no longer at the rock wall.”
This is not the first washed-up whale in the Bay Area as of late. Several have been found dead in local waters over the past few weeks, one of them decomposing on a beach in the Marin Headlands. In early April, wildlife experts euthanized and identified what they believed to be a rare minke whale that was beached at low tide.
Kelsey Goeres is the Managing Editor of the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Kelsey-Goeres.
