A dead gray whale washed ashore on a San Francisco beach Monday morning — the ninth such death in the Bay Area this year, scientists at the Marine Mammal Center said. Blunt force trauma from ships, malnutrition and entanglements are the most common causes of death in whales, the center said. Necropsies have confirmed the cause of seven of the previous eight whale deaths this year. Three whales died from ship strikes and four from malnutrition. The cause of death of the eighth whale has not been determined.
— source edition.cnn.com | May 7, 2019