Orca Attack, Entanglement Kills Young Whale In San Francisco Bay

BAY AREA, CA – A young gray whale died a slow, painful death in San Francisco Bay after being entangled and mauled by an orca, officials from the Marine Mammal Center said Tuesday.

The rescue team first heard about the dead whale last Wednesday and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers towed the carcass to Angel Island State Park later that day.

"This whale endured an extremely slow and painful decline due to multiple contributing factors," Christine Fontaine of the Marine Mammal Center said in a statement. "Although it’s not known whether the animal contracted the entanglement prior to the suspected orca predation, the samples taken today provides baseline data so that we can try to better understand this animal's lifecycle."

Scientists performed the necropsy at Sand Springs Beach in Angel Island on Friday. They said the 26-foot juvenile whale had a completely missing tail fluke and copper wire strands with white plastic wrap embedded
in its hind flesh.

The whale had multiple rib fractures and rake marks on its side that showed evidence of an orca attack, center officials said.

The female whale's blubber, organ, baleen and tissue samples were collected for more tests and the ribs and pelvic bones were taken to the California Academy of Sciences archive.

This is the second dead whale the Marin Headlands-based Marine Mammal Center has responded to in 2018. Another young male whale died in early March.

By Bay City News Service; Kristina Houck/Patch contributed to this report.

Image via Marine Mammal Center