Death - Coast to Coast

Climate change is alternating the environment for whales on both the east and west coasts of North America.  On the west coast, the bodies of 70 gray whales have washed up between California and Alaska.  This number represent twice the annual average and has been classified as an “unusual mortality event”.

The whales spend their summers feeding in the Arctic before migrating 10,000 miles (16,000 km) to winter off Mexico. Though they eat all along their route, they are typically thinning by the time they return north along the west coast each spring.

They eat many things, but especially amphipods, tiny shrimp-like creatures that live in sediment on the ocean floor in the Arctic.

...Scientists believe the loss of sea ice could have led to a loss of algae that feed the amphipods. Surveys show the amphipod beds moving farther north, said Sue Moore, a biological oceanographer at the University of Washington.

So many whales have ended up on west coast beaches that the federal government is asking for help to dispose of the bodies.

In the east, North America right whales bodies are showing up on Canadian beaches along the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.  Warming sea water has driven these whales from the Bay of Fundy north into the Saint Lawrence waters to find food.

NATHAN KLIMA FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Before 2017, few right whales had ever been seen anywhere near the area. The whales, which can grow to 60 feet long and weigh more than 250,000 pounds, mainly spent their summers feeding farther south in the Bay of Fundy.

But in recent years, as the surrounding waters of the Gulf of Maine have warmed faster than nearly any other patch of ocean on the planet, the whales’ primary source of food, a fatty, rice-sized copepod known as calanus, collapsed in their traditional feeding grounds.

So they ventured to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where food was plentiful but where there were few regulations to protect them.

Northern Right whales deaths are often attributed to entanglements with fishing gear.  The whales had more extensive protection in the waters off the eastern US coast than in the Canadian waters into which food shortages forced them.  Despite some changes to fishing regulations, these whales face a far more difficult future as the are forced to forage in the Saint Lawrence.