KODIAK — Seven dead whales washed ashore on Kodiak Island in 2018, according to officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n
The cause of death for two of the whales appeared to be predation, and blunt trauma for another two whales, including a fin whale that struck a state ferry, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported.<\/p>\n
The cause of death for the other three whales was not determined.<\/p>\n
Four of the animals were gray whales, NOAA officials said.<\/p>\n
Altogether, 18 dead whales were reported across the Gulf of Alaska last year.<\/p>\n
That is far short of the 49 deceased whales reported in the region in 2015.<\/p>\n
The cause of that event remains unknown, but scientists have tied it to unusually warm waters in the gulf during that period.<\/p>\n
The first of last year’s Kodiak strandings was reported June 25 to the Alaska Region Marine Mammal Stranding Network.<\/p>\n
In that case, a Kodiak resident reported that the body of a gray whale calf had landed on a beach near Pasagshak Bay. The animal’s tongue was missing, indicating it might have been a victim of a killer whale.<\/p>\n
A report of an adult gray whale washing up on another beach near Pasagshak followed June 28, with results of a necropsy suggesting blunt trauma as a possible cause of death. In early July, the body of a severely emaciated adult gray whale stranding was reported in another bay.<\/p>\n
A fourth dead gray whale washed ashore in Pasagshak Bay, with that stranding reported In early August. The head and jaws were missing, indicating it was likely killed by a killer whale.<\/p>\n
This is an Associated Press report.<\/b><\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That is far short of the 49 deceased whales reported in the region in 2015. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":43382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-43381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43381"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}