Trump administration urged to relist a species in ‘very, very serious trouble’ under Endangered Species Act
Climate change is driving a gray whale “catastrophic mortality event” in the Pacific Ocean as melting sea ice depletes food sources and the animals starve, environmental groups warn.
Meanwhile, a range of other issues, like ship strikes, oil spills, microplastic pollution, algal blooms and Russian harvesting are also probably contributing to the die-off that has nearly halved the whales’ estimated population. It fell from 20,000 in 2019 to fewer than 13,000 this year, and the deaths appear to be accelerating.
Environmental groups have petitioned the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) to relist the gray whale under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which would alleviate some problems, but its approval is a long shot as the Trump administration moves to gut wildlife protections.
The whales are in “very, very serious trouble”, said Rick Steiner, an Alaska marine ecologist and chair of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility’s (Peer’s) board of directors.
“The stranding numbers last year and this year are enormous compared to their annual average,” Steiner said. “Stranding” is the term for whales that wash up onshore.
The gray whales, which travel from Baja California to Alaska to feed each year, came close to extinction in the 1970s, but rebounded following robust conservation efforts. They were delisted from the ESA in 1994, which Steiner called a “colossal mistake”.
The estimates are most dire for 2025 and 2026 – somewhere from 2,500 to 8,000 whales are estimated to have died in this timeframe, which meets the criteria for a “catastrophic mortality event”.
The population of eastern gray whales, which annually migrate along the West Coast between the Arctic and Mexico, has been declining in rece
Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:
So far this year, 145 of the massive marine mammals have washed up dead or got stuck and died along the West Coast of North America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries.
This year’s deaths appear to be part of a concerning pattern, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a nonprofit environmental advocacy group sounding the alarm about the latest NOAA Fisheries statistics. Last year, 179 gray whales were found dead. And between 2019 and 2023, the animals faced what federal officials deemed an “unusual mortality event,” marked by 690 strandings and decreased birth rates.
“The stranding numbers last year and this year are enormous compared to their annual average,” Rick Steiner, an independent marine ecologist who serves as chair of PEER’s board of directors, tells the Guardian’s Tom Perkins.
If the trend continues, conservationists are concerned that 2026 could be one of the deadliest years on record for the large baleen whales. They also suspect this year’s true death toll is much higher, since many carcasses sink at sea.
“The ones that wash ashore are only maybe 10 percent of the whales that are dying,” Steiner tells KTOO Alaska Public Media’s Alix Soliman.
Two populations of gray whales live in the North Pacific Ocean. One group primarily inhabits the waters near East Asia and Russia, while the other, known as the eastern population, lives along the West Coast of North America.
Every year, members of the eastern population make a roughly 10,000-mile roundtrip journey between the Arctic, where they feed on crustaceans called amphipods, and the waters off Baja California, Mexico, where they give birth and raise their calves. The voyage is one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, according to NOAA Fisheries.
But climate change is making it harder for the whales to find enough food, and many are starving. The eastern population has declined to its lowest number since the 1970s—about 13,000 individuals in 2025, down from the 27,000 individuals estimated in 2016.
“All of them are thin. Some are extremely emaciated,” John Calambokidis, a biologist and co-founder of the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective, tells Spectrum News 1 SoCal’s Maryssa Rillo, adding that he feels something “catastrophic” happening with the animals.
Because of the climate change-driven decline of amphipods, researchers think some hungry whales are detouring into dangerous places like San Francisco Bay, where they’re being fatally struck by ships or becoming entangled in fishing gear.
“It’s almost a deadly maze that they have to make it through,” Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, tells KABC-TV’s Tony Cabrera and Shayla Girardin.
Moving forward, conservationists are optimistic that gray whales may be able to survive by shifting their diet. They’ve been spotted in growing numbers in coastal waters near Kodiak and Sitka, Alaska, where scientists think they might be searching for new food sources. It’s possible they could be “switching from the benthic little bugs—the amphipods that live in the seabed sediment—to small fishes like Arctic cod up in the water column,” Steiner tells KTOO.
Gray whales have rebounded from crises in the past. They were hunted to the brink of extinction during the heyday of commercial whaling but, following the still-in-place global moratorium, they recovered enough to be removed from the U.S. federal endangered species list in 1994. The species also bounced back after an unusual mortality event in 1999 and 2000. But this time, experts worry the creatures may not be able to adapt quickly enough.
Researchers say the whales’ struggles reflect deeper instability in the marine ecosystem.
Dead gray whales are turning up along the Pacific Northwest at the highest rate in decades, with 16 strandings in Washington and multiple carcasses in Oregon this spring, a pattern researchers say reflects a collapsing Arctic food chain and worsening ocean conditions.
Federal and regional researchers say the whales are arriving to the region with their fat reserves exhausted before they reach the midpoint of their annual migration from Baja to the Arctic.
"The alarmingly high number of gray whale strandings in Washington has continued throughout April," the Cascadia Research Collective wrote in a post on Facebook. "As we are still early in the stranding season, we anticipate there will be more."
The strandings are part of a broader, years‑long decline in the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population, according to researchers. Between 2019 and 2023, the population plummeted from roughly 27,000 to about 13,000 during a federally designated Unusual Mortality Event, according to a report from the Chinook Observer. Scientists noted signs of stabilization in 2024, but this spring’s strandings have renewed concerns the species remains vulnerable.
Researchers say the whales’ struggles reflect deeper instability in the marine ecosystem. Their migration—one of the longest of any mammal—depends entirely on fat reserves built during summer feeding in the Arctic. This year, for many, those reserves appear to be running out before the journey is halfway complete
Gray whales rely on a food web that begins with sea ice. Algae grows beneath the ice, sinks as it melts, and feeds amphipods—the whales’ primary prey. As climate change accelerates ice loss, that chain weakens. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spokesperson Michael Milstein told the Chinook Observer shifting Arctic conditions are likely contributing to the strandings, citing ongoing research by the agency and Oregon State University that links recent die‑offs to warming waters and disrupted feeding grounds.
Cascadia Research Collective reports 16 dead gray whales in Washington as of April 28, the highest number recorded in the state in five decades.
Five have been found in Ocean Shores, Washington, while the 11 others have been stranded in Deception Pass, Moclips and further north.
Malnutrition is the dominant finding, but at least four whales showed internal trauma consistent with vessel strikes, and one had evidence of a recent entanglement, according to the collective.
The Chinook Observer also documented multiple strandings in Oregon, including a large gray whale in Seaview and another in Seaside. A Baird’s beaked whale also washed ashore on the Long Beach Peninsula.
The northbound migration continues through May, and scientists expect additional strandings in the coming weeks. NOAA urges the public to report any dead or distressed marine mammals to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network hotline at 1‑866‑767‑6114 and to keep a safe distance. Only trained responders are authorized to approach stranded animals.
Boaters have been asked by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to "watch for several live gray whales in poor body condition in Puget Sound."
"The compromised whales may swim just beneath the surface except for breathing, so they can be hard to spot," the department warned. Anyone who sees live whales should report sightings to Orca Network at 866-672-2638.
Researchers emphasize that long‑term solutions require addressing the warming Arctic ecosystem that gray whales depend on. In the short term, they point to reducing vessel strikes, protecting nearshore feeding areas, and strengthening entanglement response capacity—steps they say are increasingly urgent as the species struggles to recover.
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