Recent whale deaths in the Southeast are puzzling and rare. Is climate a change a factor?

In the past month, two whales have been found stranded on beaches in the Southeast region of the U.S., one in Mississippi and the other in Florida.

Both strandings were the first of their kind in decades. Both were seemingly sick and found dead on beaches less than a week apart from each other.

What may have contributed to the deaths of these gentle giants? While experts don’t know for sure, it’s possible that climate change may have played a role.

Whale deaths in Mississippi & Florida

On Jan. 7, the fourth fin whale to strand in the Gulf since 2002 was found in Pass Christian.

Though results from necropsy (the autopsy of an animal) sampling are required to confirm, an initial inspection of the whale found no indicators of human interaction, such as entanglement or vessel strike. Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, said this means the animal was likely sick.

Days later, a killer whale washed ashore in Palm Coast, Florida, on Jan. 13. It was the third known stranding of an orca in the southeast and the first since 1956. The whale also showed signs of illness, according to experts from NOAA.

Solangi told the Sun Herald that “when animals get sick, they seek shallow water so that they can breathe and stay away from predators.”

A NOAA expert’s take on whales and climate change

Rising global temperatures can result in sea levels rising, loss of sea ice and polar habitats, freshening of sea water and ocean acidification.

For whales, it could also mean a change in the distribution and availability of food sources, such as krill. Less food can create more stress in marine creatures, less reproduction and increased susceptibility to illness.

A changing climate may also impact whale’s migration patterns, according to Dr. Erin Fougeres, the Marine Mammal Stranding Program Administrator for NOAA’s southeast region.

“There are a number of different ways that climate change can impact whales,” Fougeres said. “I think the primary changes we’re seeing are changes in distribution of whales, particularly migrating animals and animals showing up earlier or later in places where maybe they wouldn’t be expected.”

Warmer temperatures can cause whales to change their migratory patterns, resulting in them staying some places for longer and never making it to others, which can interfere with ocean ecosystems.

“And the underpinning for that could also be linked to climate change with shifts in prey distribution or changes in the timing or patchiness of prey that the whales feed on,” Fougeres said. “So there’s a number of different changes that can be expected, but I think it’s a little too early for us to say at this point whether or not any of the impacts or the strandings that we’re seeing in the southeast are due to climate change.”

Not all whale species are endangered, but ones like the fin whale stranded in Pass Christian are. Whales are vulnerable to a number of dangers, many of which are caused by humans.

“We can see whales stranded for a number of reasons, including human impacts, human interactions, vessel strikes, entanglement, that kind of thing, or also natural diseases,” Fougeres said. “Anthropogenic noise has been shown to cause the stranding of some tooth whale species. And so there’s a number of human impacts that can contribute to whale strandings as well as natural disease processes.”

Whales may help prevent climate change

In addition to topping the food chain and playing a vital role in marine ecosystems, whales are important because they are able to capture and store carbon from our atmosphere.

As some of the largest animals to exist on earth, whales store carbon directly in their biomass. And because whales are among one of the longest-living animals, with lifetimes spanning up to 90 years, they can also act as stable carbon pools.

“They store carbon, and they can actually take carbon out of the environment,” Fougeres said. “And so each whale is really really important in terms of preventing further warming of the planet.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2023 at 6:00 AM.