2 starving gray whales found dead in Ocean Shores after Willapa River whale

Just two days after a young gray whale stunned southwest Washington by 
swimming about 20 miles up the Willapa River, two adult gray whales 
washed ashore dead Friday at Ocean Shores, about 20 miles north of 
where the juvenile entered the river through Willapa Bay. They came 
ashore along a stretch of beach north of the North Jetty and south 
of the Taurus Boulevard beach approach.

Both whales were starving, said John Calambokidis, a research 
biologist and founder of Cascadia Research Collective, an Olympia-
based nonprofit that studies whale and dolphin populations. One 
was a male, the other a female. They were about 42 feet long and 
the male had significant trauma to the head consistent with a ship 
strike.

The timing of the deaths does not necessarily mean the three whales 
were traveling together, Cascadia said. Gray whales are generally 
solitary creatures and do not move in family groups, the research 
collective said on Facebook.

But taken together, the three dead whales offered a bleak snapshot of a 
population that is still struggling.

https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2026/04/2-gray-whales-died-
near-ocean-shores-after-willapa-river-whale.html