Two more dead gray whales have turned up in San Francisco Bay, just days after one was found floating offshore of Alcatraz Island.
The latest two discoveries were east of Angel Island State Park on Wednesday and just off Fort Point Rock Beach close to the San Francisco end of the Golden Gate Bridge on Friday, according to officials with the Marin Headlands-based Marine Mammal Center.
This follows the sighting of the emaciated “subadult” female gray whale found dead near Alcatraz on Saturday.
“There continues to be a significant number of gray whale sightings in San Francisco Bay as this species continues their northern migration to their Arctic feeding grounds,” said Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at the center.
“With the bay serving as a shared space for commerce and increasing whale activity, it’s vital that all boaters, from large commercial vessels to sailboats, be whale-aware and if you see a blow, go slow,” George said.
It is unclear what killed the whales. The adult male found near Angel Island was towed ashore with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A team of scientists from the Marine Mammal Center and the California Academy of Sciences were scheduled to perform a necropsy Friday to determine the cause of death.
The whale near Fort Point was stranded on a shallow rocky area that is currently inaccessible to boats so scientists hadn’t been able to determine its gender or collect tissue samples as of Friday.
People can report dead, injured or stranded marine mammals in the San Francisco Bay Area by calling the California Academy of Sciences at (415) 379-5381 for dead animals or the Marine Mammal Center at (415) 289-7325 for live animals.
People can also download a whale alert app.