Despite efforts by marine wildlife experts, the minced whale, which swam last week at Long Beach Harbor, tried to bring it back to deeper waters this weekend, officials confirmed.
Michael Millstein, a spokesman for the West Coast Regional Office of the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration, said in a phone interview that the whales died Sunday morning after working Thursday and Friday to drive them out of port. The operation involved removing the boom near the port entrance, providing a wide opening for whales and creating noise to encourage the animals in that direction.
After those efforts failed, Milstein said he hopes that the whales will find a way out of the harbor when things settle down at night.
“Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out like that, and the whale was found dead this morning,” he said. The whale was found outside a small basin with boats coming and going to the Catalina Island dock.
Milstein said it will help whales get tested for injuries and other health issues to determine why they died. One question is whether whales were affected by domoic acid, a marine neurotoxin caused by algae flowers that poisoned more than 100 sea lions and dozens of dolphins in Southern California.
According to NOAA, the great majority or the smallest of the Bellen whale family, the minced whale grows to more than 26 feet long and can weigh as much as 14,000 pounds. The whales at Long Beach Harbor were about 24 feet long, Milstein said, or “sub-adult” size, and were male.
There are 900 mink whales off the coast of Oregon, Washington and California. Whales are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Milstein said the reason why the whales originally wandered into the harbor remains a “mystery.”
“Maybe it’s lost. The whales move around the coast,” he said. “They are looking for places to feed or rest where they will provide potential habitat benefits.”
Milstein noted that whales sometimes swim in Mission Bay in San Diego or San Francisco Bay.
“Most of the time, they’re leaving again,” he said. “So I don’t know why this whale ended here when it happened.”
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