In the first week of April, an enormous, brutalized carcass of a gray whale washed up at the San Leandro Marina. The whale had propeller lacerations throughout its body, hemorrhages in the soft tissue around its jaw and shoulder and a fishing line encircling its snout.Both of these deaths, dubbed “Unusual Mortality Events” by scientists, were determined to have been caused by massive boats running into the whales – the equivalent of marine roadkill.
Each year, close to 100 whales are hit and killed by ships along the West Coast – many of them near San Francisco. A 2021 study estimated that 10 whales are killed by ships in the Bay Area every year between May and September alone. For every whale that washes up on shore, at least 10 other bodies are never recovered.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , the population of gray whales along the West Coast had dropped about 40% since the last population estimate in 2015. Humpback and blue whales, both which feed off the coast of San Francisco, are still listed as endangered. Among these vulnerable populations, vessel strikes are still one of the most frequent causes of human-caused whale deaths.
In the Bay Area, there is some irony in the fact that many of these incidents occur in what is technically a marine sanctuary. The Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, a 3,200 square mile swath of protected habitat extending along the coast north of San Francisco, is one of the primary feeding locations for whales in the region.