NOAA is investigating dozens of suspicious whale deaths in Alaska during a seemingly unstoppable and “unusual mortality event” that began in May of this year.
In the months since the first marine fatality washed ashore in the Gulf of Alaska, 30 more large humpback, fin and gray whales have been found dead of “unknown causes” there, prompting the agency to launch a probe.
A spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency said it’s typical to find maybe a handful of whale corpses within the same timeframe, but the staggering number of victims this year is alarming.
Especially since no one can figure out what -- or who -- is killing them.
"NOAA Fisheries scientists and partners are very concerned,” she confirmed, adding that they are partnering with other organizations and “investigating a wide range of possibilities,” including warming seawaters which are blossoming now with tons of toxic algae.
In fact, she said the “leading hypothesis at this point is that this was somehow caused by harmful algal bloom that's spreading up the West Coast this year.”
Investigators caution that, while it might take only a few months to pinpoint the culprit in Alaska’s suspicious whale deaths this season, it could in fact require years of data-crunching and analysis, during which more whales will perish.
In either case, though, if global warming does indeed prove to be the cause of the troubling die-off, then you and I are mass murderers.
