ONE YEAR AGO TODAY: Humpback whale’s Fauntleroy stranding

August 7, 2017 4:14 pm
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 |   Fauntleroy | West Seattle news | Wildlife

expertsout(WSB photo, August 7, 2016)

One year ago today – on August 7th, 2016 – it was a heartbreaking, yet enlightening day on the Fauntleroy shore just south of the ferry dock: A 39-foot-long juvenile female humpback whale came into the shallow waters early that Sunday morning, stranded and died. Volunteers worked to see if anything could be done to get her back out to sea, but within just a few hours, she took her last breath; then the situation became more of an investigation and finally a towing operation.

IMG_5594(WSB photo, August 7, 2016)

Some sampling/testing was done right on the beach after the tide went out, as noted in our 12 hours of coverage, but no formal necropsy report ever emerged. Humpbacks are no longer rare in Puget Sound – that was part of the education that this one left as her legacy, reminding those paying attention that they are increasing in numbers – up and down the entire West Coast, in fact. And since then, we have indeed had many humpback sightings (like this one off Fauntleroy in June).

One of the many experts, local and otherwise, who came to the scene a year ago (as shown in our photo gallery) was John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research Collective, well known for its whale research. We contacted him recently, looking ahead to the anniversary, asking if further information had become available. His reply:

We did get some information back but (it) did not add too much. Jessie Huggins, our stranding coordinator, indicated: “The necropsy observations of severe internal damage from the live stranding event, malnutrition, and parasitism were confirmed by histopathology. There were small amounts of biotoxins detected in the feces (both domoic acid and saxitoxin) but are considered incidental (not high enough levels to have contributed to the stranding event). The exact cause of the live stranding remains a mystery”

On the second morning after the whale’s death, West Seattle-based Global Diving and Salvage towed her carcass to a spot off Blake Island for a quiet burial in about 400 feet of water.

globlgoingaway(WSB photo, August 9, 2016)

The humpback was the first whale to strand and die on a West Seattle beach since a gray whale in The Arroyos in April 2010.

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