Gray Whale Dies After 20-Mile Swim Up Washington River
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- The gray whale was discovered dead Saturday near Raymond, Washington, in the Willapa River, after swimming roughly 20 miles inland from Willapa Bay into waters too shallow for boats to navigate by Friday.
- NOAA Fisheries declared an unusual mortality event from late 2018 to late 2023, documenting 690 gray whale strandings from Alaska to Mexico and attributing them to ecosystem changes in sub-Arctic and Arctic feeding areas causing malnutrition, decreased birth rates, and increased mortality.
- The 2025 population estimate placed the eastern Pacific gray whale population at roughly 13,000 — the lowest since the 1970s — dashing earlier hopes that the species was rebounding after the mortality event ended.
- John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research Collective told the AP the whale likely entered the river in a "desperate search" for food, noting that many gray whales currently appear "very emaciated, very thin" because the 5,000-mile spring migration from Baja to Alaska is the longest stretch the animals go without eating.
- Cascadia Research Collective said the whale appeared thin but behaved normally with no apparent injuries when it entered the north fork of the Willapa River on Wednesday, roughly 185 miles southwest of Seattle, drawing crowds of residents to bridges along the route.
Why it matters: A juvenile gray whale's death 20 miles up a Washington river is a visible symptom of a broader starvation crisis: NOAA documented 690 strandings during its 2018–2023 unusual mortality event, and 2025 counts put the eastern Pacific population at roughly 13,000 — the lowest since the 1970s. Reduced prey in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas is pushing starving whales into unusual inland waterways.
