November 4, 2019 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is still trying to figure out what is causing marine mammals to die at high rates in Alaska.
In September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an unusual mortality event for three types of seals in the Arctic, including bearded, ringed and spotted seals in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
“Our normal stranding numbers for ice seals is about 20 to 30 a year,” said NOAA Marine Biologist Barbara Mahoney. “So we are dealing with more than five times the dead animals that we’ve had in the past.”
But it isn’t just seals.
In May, NOAA declared an unusual mortality event for gray whales along the West Coast from Mexico to Alaska. As of Sept. 30, the agency reported a total of 121 dead gray whales in 2019.