A one-year-old gray whale washed up on the beach at County Line. Its cause of death is still unknown. Photo: Joe Rickabaugh
A large Pacific gray whale washed up dead at County Line beach in Malibu on Sunday drawing a crowd of curious beachgoers, according to reports. The cause of death will be determined once the Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute carries out a necropsy on Monday.
According to CBS2 News, the whale was about a year old when it died and came ashore with cuts causing some to speculate it’d been hit by a boat. Experts, though, weren’t sure if that was the animal’s cause of death or if it happened after the fact.
“I really don’t know, Ron Barrett of the Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute told CBS. “There’s evidence of boat damage but that could have happened after the fact, so that will be up to the sedation research unit to determine the cause of death.”
The incident comes as countless gray whales are migrating from Mexico to Alaska by way of the California coast and have been spotted a few feet from shore in Laguna Beach, and Marina Del Rey. Another gray whale carcass was spotted off Hermosa Beach last week.
Officials say that instead of carting the carcass out to sea or blowing it up, they plan to wait for it to decompose naturally.
