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"The gray whale appears to be suffering its second Catastrophic Mortality Event this decade," said Rick Steiner, Alaska marine ecologist and PEER Board of Directors Chairman.
"The loss of thousands of whales in just two years from a population at significant risk should be of concern to us all."
He connected the starvation patterns directly to the loss of northern sea ice, which compromises the benthic prey base that whales depend on.
"Gray whales seem to be starving, as Arctic sea ice decline is reducing their Arctic seabed prey resource," said Rick Steiner, Alaska marine ecologist and PEER Board of Directors Chairman.
"As we seek to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate this long-term threat, other shorter-term threats to these whales must also be reduced, including ship strikes, oil spills, entanglement in fishing gear, harmful algal blooms, microplastic pollution, ocean noise, disturbance, and the harvest in Russia."
Steiner noted that some whales are moving into new coastal areas and altering their feeding behaviors to survive.
"Switching from the benthic little bugs, the amphipods that live in the seabed sediment, to small fishes like Arctic cod up in the water column," said Rick Steiner, retired University of Alaska marine conservation professor.
He has petitioned federal authorities to restore protections for the species to establish better management parameters.
"The way to do that is to relist them on the Endangered Species Act, provide the management tools that NOAA needs in order to give these guys the best chance of making it through this climate bottleneck," said Rick Steiner, retired University of Alaska marine conservation professor.
PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennet criticized federal regulators for failing to implement mitigation measures like safety zones.
"Despite mounting threats, NOAA has yet to take any affirmative action to protect the gray whale," said Kyla Bennet, PEER Science Policy Director.
"Further inaction by NOAA will push the West Coast population of gray whales into an extinction spiral."
NOAA Fisheries spokesperson Michael Milstein responded via email that the agency is still analyzing the environmental patterns and the petition.
"At this point, elevated strandings have continued, but all indications are that the causes remain the same," said Michael Milstein, spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries.
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The federal agency has not provided a specific timeline for its final administrative determination regarding the relisting petition.
