More Gray Whales Found Dead Along Washington State Coast as Historic Stranding Season Extends Into June

The Daily World reported on June 5, 2026, that additional gray whale carcasses continued to wash ashore along Washington State's Pacific coast, extending what has become one of the most severe whale stranding seasons on record. The pattern of discoveries — with emaciated, malnourished animals washing ashore across Washington's entire Pacific coastline from the Olympic Peninsula south to Willapa Bay — had continued uninterrupted since late March 2026, with the total confirmed Washington deaths exceeding 22 animals by late May. Scientists from NOAA and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center confirmed the primary cause of death as starvation, with necropsied animals showing severely depleted blubber reserves consistent with the collapse of Arctic amphipod food sources. The stranding season comes in the context of a broader population collapse: the eastern Pacific gray whale population has fallen from approximately 27,000 individuals in 2016 to an estimated 13,000 today — a halving in under a decade. Biologists note that gray whales are particularly vulnerable to Arctic food web disruption because they are obligate benthic feeders, literally filtering amphipods from Arctic sea floor sediments in a feeding strategy uniquely dependent on specific Arctic habitat conditions being disrupted by warming. With June underway and gray whales typically migrating northward toward Arctic feeding grounds, scientists are monitoring whether surviving animals can recover adequate energy stores for successful summer foraging — and whether the calving season next winter will show any recovery from the approximately 95% decline in calf production that has been documented since 2016.