FILE - In this May 6, 2019 file photo, Duat Mai stands atop a dead whale at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Federal officials are asking waterfront landowners in western Washington to volunteer their properties to be the final resting place for dead gray whales. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries says so many gray whale carcasses have washed up this year they've run out of locations where they can be left to decompose. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Around 80 dead gray whales have washed up on the West Coast of the US since January 2019, and officials in the country do not know where to bury them anymore.
Local organizations are currently having a nightmare and are currently struggling to bury them as they can grow up to 12 meters.
The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries are currently asking landowners to volunteer their properties so they can bury the whales in their waterfront properties.
The authorities from the NOAA are hoping that landowners will offer their properties so they can get a chance to support the natural process of the marine life environment.
The authorities from the NOAA also said that the skeletons of the Whales could be used for educational purposes afterward.
This year alone, 30 dead whales washed up on the coast of Washington, this is the most they saw in the last 2 decades.
37 washed up on the coast of California since the beginning of the year, 7 washed up on the coast of Alaska, and 3 in Oregon.
Officials had to gather an independent team of scientists so they could find out what was causing the deaths of the grey whales.
The officials added that most of the grey whales that washed up on the west coast had little body fat.
The officials are suspecting that their deaths were caused by the result of the declining availability of food sources in the sea.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries said, “Full or partial necropsy examinations were conducted on a subset of the whales. Preliminary findings in several of the whales have shown evidence of emaciation.”
But The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries added that more research is needed so they could hand out the real cause of the whale’s deaths.
Another reason that is being considered by scientists is that the die-off could be caused due to the rising numbers of grey whales in the sea.
One theory suggests that the population of the grey whales has reached the limit of the environment’s capacity that it could not sustain it anymore.
David Weller, a Biologist, said that the current population of Grey Whales is around 27,000, which has been the largest since the surveys started in 1967.
Biologist Weller added, “Keep in mind that carrying capacity is not a hard ceiling, but that it’s a shifting threshold. In some years or period of years, the environment is capable of supporting more whales than in other years.”
Many believe that climate change is the reason behind the deaths of the whales. But further study is needed to prove this.