One resident taking a morning walk found a dead gray whale near Crissy Field in the San Francisco Bay on Wednesday.
Amir Ali Bigdeli was walking by the St. Francis Yacht Club in Crissy Field when he spotted the dead animal’s body floating in the water. After his walk, he took a picture of the creature, which seemed to be more than 40 feet long.
Dead Gray Whale
The Marina district residents said he was able to talk with swimmers in the San Francisco Bay regarding the animal. He found out that the creature may have lost its life only recently. “According to the swimmers who were close to the carcass there was no smell. It’s a sad night,” Bigdeli said.
A spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center, Giancarlo Rulli, said the agency was working with the Army Corps of Engineers to transfer the body of the animal to Angel Island State Park. There, officials will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the whale’s cause of death. Authorities are currently on their way to the park with the whale in tow.
Rulli said the whale was the first of its kind to wash ashore this year in the San Francisco Bay. “This gray whale is listed under an ‘unusual mortality event’ due to high numbers that have been washing ashore dead from Mexico all the way up to Alaska,” he said, the San Francisco Gate reported.
San Francisco-based California Academy of Sciences was working together with Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center on Wednesday to investigate the scene on Wednesday. “We rely on these reports in order to respond effectively,” Rulli said.
