A young gray whale that surprised residents in southwest Washington this week after traveling 20 miles up the Willapa River has died, according to the Cascadia Research Collective. In a Facebook update on Saturday, the group said it was “saddened to confirm” that the whale had died.
The group also said it was working with local partners to determine whether the site was safe enough for testing and urged the public not to approach the whales.
The whale was first reported late last Wednesday morning after entering the river through Willapa Bay near Bluesport and heading east past South Bend and Raymond. The road went under the US 101 bridge, through farm fields, onto a narrow, winding road, and eventually reached the Camp 1 Road bridge. In total, the young whales migrated approximately 32 kilometers upstream from the ocean. As the crow flies, we arrived at a distance of about 19 miles east of the river entrance and about 20 miles from the coast.
The sight shocked people living along the river.
“It was my first time seeing a whale,” Christine Balcomb, who lives near the river in South Bend, said earlier this week. “Seeing that cow in the middle of a cow field was moving and surreal.”
She said the sight was even more amazing because the river appeared to be very shallow in places.
“It’s like a stream,” Balcomb said. “Nobody would think it was deep enough for a whale to swim, and it was crazy to see the whale turn around and disappear into the water. I wish I had taken a photo from the bridge where you could see the land on both sides.”
Cascadia Research Collective, a nonprofit marine mammal research group, monitored the whale on Wednesday to assess its condition and behavior. Teams searched again on Thursday, but the lack of sightings was briefly seen as encouraging. However, by Thursday afternoon, the whale had returned to the same stretch of river where it had been seen the day before. Cascadia said in a Facebook update Thursday morning that the whale appeared thin but was behaving normally, and that the original plan was to give it time and space to depart on its own.
Balcomb also said members of the Chinook tribe went out Wednesday night to sing a ceremonial song to help the whale return to the ocean.
Cascadia Island Stranding Coordinator Jesse Huggins said in an earlier statement that researchers do not know whether the whale is male or female, and its exact length is unknown. However, she said it was larger than a calf and still relatively small, suggesting it was likely still 1 or 2 years old. Huggins added that gray whales are generally solitary and may have fed near the mouth of a river as the tide came in, then followed the water upstream and become disoriented. Researchers observed gray whales eating sediment, which is normal behavior for gray whales, and heard there were shells in the area.
Huggins said gray whales routinely feed in shallow water on benthic invertebrates, or small animals that live on the bottom, and are generally good at navigating in low-tide areas. Still, there’s always a chance that whales could become stranded if the tide recedes too quickly. The area of the river where the whale was spotted is strongly influenced by the tides, so the water still contains a considerable amount of salt. Prolonged exposure to fresh water can cause skin problems in whales, but it usually requires long exposure.
On Friday, members of the Chinook and Shoalwater Bay tribes in canoes, along with wildlife officials and marine mammal experts in small boats, conducted a large-scale water search on rivers in southwest Washington. The whale was nowhere to be seen, and after about 24 hours of no sightings, authorities were hoping the whale had returned to the ocean.
But around 3:30 p.m. Saturday, aerial photos posted to a Facebook wildlife group appeared to show the young whale again in a narrow, shallow area of the Willapa River near the submerged log. Cascadia later confirmed the whale was still in the river and said people were on the scene assessing the situation. Late Saturday, Cascadia told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the whale was dead.
Whales occasionally enter the river, but they are usually not this small. In 2021, a gray whale was discovered in the lower Columbia River. In May 2025, a pod of killer whales was spotted in the Yaquina River. Huggins said a gray whale was reported and sighted once in a Columbia River tributary in 2018, but she was not aware of another whale entering the Willapa River. This wasn’t the first time whales had been spotted in the Northwest’s interior. In October 1931, a young killer whale, later known as Ethelbert, traveled nearly 100 miles up the Columbia River and into the Columbia Swamp north of Portland, where he was killed.
Mr Cascadia had earlier urged people to keep their distance as responders tried to give the whale some space. In its latest update, the group once again urged the public not to approach the whales.
Pacific coast gray whale
Approximately 14,000 gray whales migrate to the Pacific Coast each year between their winter breeding grounds in Baja California and their spring feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska. Researchers say about 250 gray whales are in the Pacific Northwest foraging, swimming between Northern California and British Columbia.
Gray whales can grow up to about 50 feet long, making them one of the largest animals on Earth. They feed on organisms such as shrimp and crab larvae through their barbel plates, which filter food from the water.
In 2019, NOAA declared an unusual mortality event after the number of gray whale strandings on the Pacific coast far exceeded normal levels. The event began on December 17, 2018, and NOAA ultimately recorded 690 strandings in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Research results published in 2024 pro swan The researchers found that many of the 61 whales they studied were thin or emaciated, pointing to malnutrition related to reduced food availability in Arctic and sub-Arctic feeding grounds as a major factor in the die-offs. The study also recorded deaths related to ship strikes, killer whale interactions and entanglement in fishing gear, and found no evidence that infectious disease caused the incidents, although some carcasses had limited visibility due to decomposition. Scientists don’t fully understand whether food shortages are due to changes in ecosystems, increased competition for prey, or both.
Visitors to the Oregon coast can spot whales during their winter and spring migrations. Alternatively, try your luck at seeing them up close on one of the several whale watching tours that depart from Depoe Bay.
#Gray #whale #dies #swimming #miles #Willapa #River