Starving Gray Whale Dies in Washington River

0:00It's April 5, Canada News. Today starts now, AI-powered and ready. I'm Cory with the story. A young gray whale that swam 20 miles up a small river in Washington State has turned up dead, and experts think hunger pushed it there while the species struggles with food shortages. This juvenile was spotted in the Willapa River near Raymond on Saturday. Part of the spring migration were grays travel 5,000 miles from. Mexico's Baja California, up to Alaska's feeding spots in Willapa Bay. Residents were stunned by the sight, but it's tied to bigger problems. Since 2019, Eastern Pacific grays have faced shrinking prey in the Arctic's bearing and chuck she sees, leaving many looking skinny and weak. From late 2018 to late 2023, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracked 690 strandings in an honor. The usual mortality event, blaming ecosystem shifts that cut food, drop birth rates, and

1:00spike deaths. Migrations that tough is stretched without a star, meal. Researchers from Cascadia Research say the whale seemed normal with no wounds, just then, and had ventured too far up unnavigable waters, they're planting in a crop soon to confirm starvation as the culprit in this ongoing crisis.