Coastal waters from Mendocino to San Francisco Bay have become a graveyard for gray whales

MENDOCINO CO., 5/5/26 — The 40-foot male gray whale on RCA Beach had drifted past Tiburon on March 28, slid through the Golden Gate on a strong tide, and washed ashore in Bolinas the night of April 1. By the next afternoon, a team from the Marine Mammal Center and the California Academy of Sciences was on the sand in waders and elbow-length gloves, racing the next tide for samples — bone saws and meat hooks against the foul stench one writer compared to “a refrigerator left for weeks without power.”

They were looking for trauma.