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A minke whale that spent the last week swimming in Long Beach Harbor despite efforts by marine wildlife experts to reroute it back to deeper waters died this weekend, officials confirmed.
Michael Milstein, spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast regional office, said in a phone interview that the whale was found dead Sunday morning after officials had worked on Thursday and Friday to push the whale out of the harbor, only for it to return back. The operations involved removing booms near the entrance of the harbor to provide a broader opening for the whale and making noises to help encourage the animal in that direction.
After those efforts failed, Milstein said the hope was that the whale would find its way out of the harbor when things were calmer at night, “which is typically what happens when whales wander into bays or inlets.”
“Unfortunately, this one did not turn out that way and the whale was found dead this morning,” he said. The whale was found outside the small basin where boats coming to and from Catalina Island dock.
Milstein said the whale would undergo an examination for injuries and other health issues to help determine why it died. One question is whether the whale was affected by domoic acid, a marine neurotoxin caused by algal blooms that in recent weeks has poisoned more than 100 sea lions and dozens of dolphins in Southern California.
Minke whales, considered the smallest of the great, or baleen, whale family, can grow to more than 26 feet long and weigh as much as 14,000 pounds, according to NOAA. The whale in Long Beach Harbor was about 24 feet long, Milstein said, or “sub-adult” size, and was a male.
There are an estimated 900 minke whales off Oregon, Washington and California. The whale is protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Milstein said it remained a “mystery” why the whale originally wandered into the harbor.
“Presumably, it strayed. Whales move around the coast,” he said. “They’re looking for places to feed or rest that give them some potential habitat benefits.”
He noted that whales will occasionally swim into Mission Bay in San Diego or the San Francisco Bay.
“Most of the time they work their way out again,” he said. “So we’re not sure why this whale ended up here when it did.”
