Dead gray whale washes ashore on Whidbey Island, 19th this year

A dead gray whale washed ashore on a Whidbey Island beach Wednesday, turning a quiet stretch of West Beach Road near North Sunset Beach into the latest sign of a worrying statewide surge in gray-whale deaths.

The Island County Sheriff’s Office said the whale was found along the beach and notified the NOAA Marine Mammal Stranding Network to evaluate the carcass and decide what happens next. Island County’s stranding guidance says the response depends on where the animal is found and whether the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network needs to remove it for a full investigation. Video from the same event showed the whale floating off the west side of Whidbey before it came ashore.

The local discovery carries weight far beyond one shoreline. By mid-May, reporting said this was the 19th gray whale death found in Washington this year, part of a sharp increase that has alarmed researchers and coastal observers. Earlier in the spring, Cascadia Research Collective said six dead gray whales had been found in Washington since April 1, bringing the state total to nine by April 13, the highest annual number it had ever recorded by that point in the year.

Scientists have said many of the gray whales examined in Washington have appeared malnourished, a troubling sign for a species that migrates along the West Coast and has already been under stress. NOAA Fisheries says the eastern North Pacific gray whale population has continued to decline and reproduction remains very low. In June 2025, NOAA estimated the population at about 13,000, the lowest level since the 1970s.

The whale on Whidbey also arrives just over a year after NOAA Fisheries declared over the 2019-2023 eastern North Pacific gray whale unusual mortality event, which documented 690 stranded whales from late 2018 through late 2023. Even with that event officially closed in March 2024, the continued strandings suggest the underlying pressures on gray whales have not disappeared. For people who live near Island County beaches, the scene is a stark reminder that the coastline is still part of a changing marine environment where tides, wildlife, and human impacts meet in full view.