A gray whale spotted near Hat Island west of Everett on Thursday evening is believed to be the same whale that beached itself three times a week ago in Snohomish County — and then disappeared.
The whale appeared to be swimming fairly strongly and its exhalations seemed normal, Howard Garrett, director of the Whidbey Island-based Orca Network, said Friday.
“Those indicate it may be OK,” he said.
The whale, about 40 feet long, was spotted north of Hat Island about 5 p.m. Thursday.
A gray whale beached three times last week at low tide, twice near Everett and once near Tulalip Bay.
“Everyone assumed this whale is probably sick and dying,” Garrett said. “It’s unheard of to float away from one time, much less three in a row.”
The whale appears to be neither young nor fully grown, “what we might term a sub-adult,” said John Calambokidis, a research biologist for Cascadia Research in Olympia.
The nonprofit group conducts research and collaborates with the Orca Network when marine animals are stranded or wash ashore dead. It has photographed and identified about 1,000 gray whales.
“Clearly to have it come up on the beach alive three times is not a very good indication of the animal being healthy,” he said. “I think we can be hopeful that it hasn’t stranded for a few days.”
Each spring, about 20,000 gray whales migrate north along the Pacific coast from their breeding grounds in Mexico, he said. While in their breeding grounds, they fast.
Some of the whales that wander into Puget Sound on their northward migration appear emaciated and debilitated, he said. “They seem to have run out of fat and oil reserves.”
The whale that beached itself near Everett seems to fit that pattern, he said.
The West Coast population of gray whales consists of four groups, he said: those that migrate past the Puget Sound area; a group of about a dozen “north Puget Sound regulars” that are often spotted near Whidbey and Camano islands from February until late May or early June; stragglers or those that are debilitated; and a group that ends up in the Pacific from northern California to British Columbia.
The regulars that show up near Camano and Whidbey islands every spring feed for two to three months, stocking up for the continuation of their trip north, Calambokidis said, and may end up as far north as Alaska.
Stragglers are often spotted once and typically aren’t seen in future years, he said. These are the whales most often stranding on area beaches. About six gray whales die and wash up on Washington beaches each year, he said.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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