Second Humpback Whale This Month Washes Ashore on Humboldt Beach as West Coast Whale Deaths Climb Toward Record Year

A humpback whale carcass that washed ashore near Centerville, west of Ferndale, has become the second dead humpback found on Humboldt County beaches in just two weeks — and part of a wider pattern that has scientists watching closely as 2026 shapes up to be one of the deadliest years on record for whales along the West Coast.

The Centerville whale was reported on the 8th of July and reached by responders on the 11th, according to Allison Lui who is the Stranding Coordinator for the Cal Poly Humboldt Marine Mammal Stranding Program and helped access the animal.

Another whale, found near Mad River Beach, was reported on the 2nd of this month and reached on the 3rd. Both animals had already died at sea and floated into shore rather than stranding alive, Lui said. A juvenile humpback also washed up last fall on Agate Beach.

Local four-by-four clubs helped responders reach the Centerville Beach whale this last weekend. “This one would have been really challenging to access without them so we’re very appreciative of their help,” Lui said.

Two dead humpbacks in close succession might sound alarming, but Lui said it isn’t necessarily a red flag for this stretch of coast. “It does seem unusual to have two that are so close together, but we actually see one to two per year. So while they’re kind of close together [in time] and [relatively close together] in space, it’s not that unusual for us to see humpback whales stranding on shore,” she said.

What Killed the Whales? A Difficult Question to Answer

Determining a cause of death is often impossible by the time a whale reaches shore. Both animals were in advanced stages of decomposition, Lui explained. Because whales carry a thick layer of insulating blubber, their bodies can look relatively fresh on the outside even as their organs disintegrate internally — making it hard to confirm signs of injury, entanglement, or disease through a necropsy.

Responders are hoping to test the Centerville Beach whale for domoic acid, a neurotoxin produced by harmful algal blooms that has been linked to whale deaths elsewhere on the coast this year, Lui said.

A Bigger Picture: Whales Under Pressure Coastwide

While the Centerville and Mad River Beach deaths appear consistent with a typical year for Humboldt County, they floated to land amid a grim statewide trend on the West Coast. This is mostly a reflection of what is happening with gray whales though humpbacks have not been spared.

According to Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, gray whales have suffered a “catastrophic” die-off this year, primarily tied to starvation. Gray whales feed in the Arctic each summer on small crustaceans called amphipods, which depend on algae growing beneath sea ice. As Arctic sea ice forms later and melts earlier, less of that algae reaches the sea floor, leaving whales with little food to eat before their long migration to Mexico and back. Sakashita said the eastern North Pacific gray whale population has declined significantly over the past decade as a result.

Humpback whales haven’t been hit at nearly the same scale, Sakashita said, but they haven’t been spared either. She pointed to two humpbacks that died near Monterey Bay this year after exposure to domoic acid, along with whales entangled in fishing gear along the California coast. Because West Coast humpbacks are listed under the Endangered Species Act, Sakashita said each whale’s death has dark implications for the species’ recovery.

Sakashita also pointed to two of the biggest preventable threats to whales: ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement. She said that although 24 whales were reported struck by ships along the West Coast last year, federal scientists estimate the true number is closer to 80, since most struck whales sink rather than wash ashore. Entanglements follow a similar pattern. She said 33 were reported last year, but officials believe the real number is roughly five times higher, with humpbacks especially prone to becoming tangled after hitting fishing gear and thrashing.

Both ship strikes and entanglements become more common in years with unusually warm coastal waters, Sakashita said, because warm water pushes prey, and the whales chasing the prey, closer to shore, where they overlap more with ship traffic and fishing operations. She argued that isn’t simply a natural cycle. “These are not necessarily natural deaths,” she said. She outlined steps that she said could reduce deaths.  She believes a mandatory 10-knot speed limits for ships in areas where whales congregate, and a shift toward ‘pop-up’ fishing gear, which keeps traps resting on the seafloor with no rope running up through the water  thus removing the maze of vertical lines that whales can become entangled in as they migrate.

The Numbers Behind the Trend

Those concerns are backed up by a recent analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity, which found that at least 51 whales have died along the West Coast so far this year. If deaths continue at that pace, 2026 could become the second-deadliest year on record for West Coast whales, behind only 2019, when 122 whales died.

“Far too many whales are dying along the West Coast, and ship strikes and other human activities are contributing to this deadly surge,” Sakashita said in the analysis. “We know we can save whales by slowing ships down in whale hot spots, so federal officials need to make it happen.”

The organization’s review of federal data found that 521 whales stranded — meaning found dead or unable to return to the water — between 2020 and 2025, an average of about 87 a year. The highest single-year total in that stretch was 120, in 2025. This year’s count of 51 deaths came within the first five months alone, putting 2026 on pace to match or exceed that recent high — and, if the rate holds, to approach the all-time record of 122 set in 2019. Of the whales stranded between 2020 and 2025, 82 were documented ship-strike cases, most heavily concentrated in 2025. Gray whales accounted for the majority of ship-strike strandings, followed by humpbacks and fin whales. Ninety-seven stranded whales during that period were documented as entangled in fishing gear. Because most struck or entangled whales are never found, scientists consider these figures a significant undercount.

A separate study published in Frontiers in Marine Science found gray whales entering San Francisco Bay face a particularly high mortality rate, with vessel strikes responsible for roughly 40% of examined carcasses in that area.

The Center for Biological Diversity is currently suing the U.S. Coast Guard over how shipping lanes are designated, arguing that mandatory speed reductions in high-whale-activity zones are an immediate, science-backed way to cut mortality — one piece of a larger push to address a problem advocates say is preventable, not natural.

Sakashita says she believes a lot of these whale deaths can be prevented.

“So you know we would like to see ships slowing down,” she told us. “We’d like to see a transition away from harmful fishing gear that entangles whales, and hopefully by limiting some of those, putting those common sense measures in, we could buy some more time to solve this larger problem of climate change, which we actually know how to fix by reducing carbon pollution. But we need to to generate the political will to make that happen.”

Humboldt County’s whale deaths this year are within the normal range. Liu says the local pattern doesn’t point to anything unusual. One or two humpback strandings a year is typical, even when two arrive close together. But statewide, as harmful algal blooms grow more frequent with warming, marine heat waves continue, and ship and fishing traffic overlaps more with whale habitat, Sakashita says the pressures driving those numbers are not normal.

Anyone who finds a stranded marine mammal is asked to keep a safe distance, photograph the animal if possible, and report it right away. Dead or stranded marine mammals can be reported to [email protected] or 707-826-3650; live, injured, or distressed marine mammals should be reported to 707-951-4722.