Dead Gray Whale On Half Moon Bay Towed Out to Sea

By Bay City News Service, photo courtesy city of Half Moon Bay

A dead gray whale found on a Half Moon Bay beach Tuesday was towed out to sea this morning, a day after crews finished burying two other whales on a Pacifica beach.

The gray whale was discovered on Francis Beach in Half Moon Bay at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, city officials said. Researchers were unable to perform a necropsy on the 38-foot whale because it was too deep in the surf to access the carcass, California Academy of Sciences spokeswoman Haley Bowling said today. The researchers did manage to take more precise measurements of the whale and took photos of its distinguishing characteristics to see if it had ever been researched or catalogued before, but so far have been unable to identify it, Bowling said.

Half Moon Bay city officials consulted with researchers from the academy as well as the Marine Mammal Center and the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine the best way to dispose of the whale. Despite its advanced decomposition, the whale’s spine remained intact so crews tied a rope around the tail and towed it 30 feet from shore, where it is unlikely to return to the California coast, city officials said.

The whale is the third found beached on the San Mateo County coastline in recent weeks. Two other whales were found stranded on Sharp Park Beach in Pacifica in April and May: a 48-foot sperm whale discovered on April 14 near Mori Point and a 42-foot adult female humpback found on May 5. That beach is under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which had initially intended to let the whales decompose on the beach, but agreed to bury them after the city of Pacifica raised concerns about the odor. Crews completed the burial on Wednesday, Rec and Park spokeswoman Connie Chan said.

Researchers were unable to determine conclusively how those whales had died, though blunt force trauma on the humpback seemed to suggest it might have died after being struck by a ship.