www.montereycountynow.com January 16-22, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 11 On a warm Tuesday last fall, crowds gathered at Carmel River State Beach to witness something unusual: a live, beached, juvenile killer whale. “It literally looked like a movie scene,” said Wendy England, who was visiting on vacation from Colorado. “Everybody just wanted to come and help.” The orca was reported “thrashing in the waves” to the Marine Mammal Center hotline at 7:25am on Sept. 10. Experts from the Center were dispatched immediately, joined by State Parks personnel, members of local whale nonprofits and frenzied bystanders, as Monterey Peninsula Engineering provided an excavator to dig a trench to begin the delicate process of moving the live orca. A crane hoisted the animal into the back of a truck, then into a refrigerated van for transport to the Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz for rehabilitation. But the animal died en route, leaving many to wonder: What happened? “It really is just an accidental occurrence that for whatever reason, he ended up [on the beach],” says Dr. Pádraig Duignan, director of pathology at the Marine Mammal Center, who conducted the necropsy. “Once that happened, it was kind of inevitable.” Test results show the killer whale died from cardiomyopathy, a condition involving stress to the heart. He was determined to be about 2 months old—a healthy young male with no preexisting conditions. He was not malnourished, but somehow, he and the mother got separated. Once stranded, the orca’s body suffered under the force of gravity, which can damage skeletal muscles. This, compounded with difficulty breathing and the stress of separation, proved fatal. “As well observed as our coast seems to be, nobody has been able to pinpoint which pod he would have come from,” Duignan says. “We don’t even know that, let alone the circumstances around how he ended up on the beach.” Genetic tests confirm the orca was part of a population known as the West Coast Bigg’s killer whale species, a top predator commonly found along California’s coast feeding on marine mammals. While killer whale species may appear similar, some are far more threatened. Scientists initially considered whether this orca might belong to a pod near Puget Sound that feeds exclusively on salmon—a population whose numbers are dwindling due to a lack of food and exposure to environmental toxins. “A lot of people seem to think orcas are endangered everywhere. But that’s really not the case,” says Michael Millstein of NOAA, noting that this beached orca is “one of the most successful killer whale species overall.” Dr. Emily Whitmer, a clinical veterinarian with the Marine Mammal Center who was present both at the scene during the response and in the van during transport, explains that any cetacean (whale, dolphin or porpoise) that strands is in a life-threatening situation and cannot survive out of the water for an extended period. “This orca calf’s stranding was in a very unusual location,” Whitmer adds. “This is not a common occurrence on the California coastline.” Killer Whale Tale A mystery unfolds of an orca that washed up on Carmel River State Beach last fall. By Katie Rodriguez A rescue team loads up a young orca in Carmel on Sept. 10; the animal died in transit. The otherwise healthy orca’s stranding was unusual in many ways; typically, stranded animals are sick. NEWS “Everybody just wanted to come and help.” DANIEL DREIFUSS Thursday – Sunday 11 am – 5 pm 559 Pacific Street, Monterey, CA 93940 More information at montereyart.org The Persistence of Color II: Works by Je rey Becom and Lucas Blok January 2 – April 27, 2025 Celebrating California Art: Recent Acquisitions January 9 – July 20, 2025 Morley Baer: Modernism in Northern California Architecture January 16 – April 27, 2025 Image Credits: Mark Mills House (I), Mission at 13th, Carmel, CA, 1953. By Morley Baer © 2025, the Morley Baer Photography Trust, Santa Fe. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Je rey Becom (b. 1953), Pink Door, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India, 2008, archival pigment print, 30 x 45 in. Courtesy of Weston Gallery © Je rey Becom. Lucas Blok (b. 1950), 7-1-18, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 84 in. Courtesy of the artist, all artworks © Lucas Blok. Judy Chicago (b. 1939), Emblem, c. 1962–1964, acrylic on masonite, 42 x 42 in. Monterey Museum of Art; Purchase by exchange; gi of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Bates, Mrs. J.B. Heywood, Elizabeth George Lawlor in memory of Dorothy George Meakin, William and Renee Petersen, Mr. and Mrs. John Shephard, Mr. and Mrs. E.V. Staude, Carolyn Lewis Nielson, Albert Denney, Nancy Stillwell Easterbrook, Margaret Wentworth Owings, Naedra B. Robinson, Elizabeth Tompkins, and an anonymous donor, 2019.001. © Judy Chicago / ARS | Artist Rights Society, NY Monterey Museum of Art Winter Exhibition Season
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