Beaches sought for dead whales to rot in peace

PORTLAND, Ore. — So many gray whales are dying off the West Coast that scientists and volunteers dealing with the putrid carcasses have an urgent request for coastal residents: Lend us your private beaches so these ocean giants can rot in peace.

The number of dead whales washing ashore in Washington state alone — 29 as of this week — means almost every isolated public beach has been used. Authorities are now scrambling to find remote stretches of sand that are privately owned, with proprietors who don’t mind hosting a rotting creature that is bigger than a school bus and has a stench to match its size.

“The preferred option is, at all times, that they just be allowed to decompose naturally,” said John Calambokidis, a research biologist with Cascadia Research in Olympia, Wash. “But it gets harder and harder to find locations where they can rot without creating a problem. This is a new wrinkle.”

At least 81 gray whale corpses have washed ashore in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska since Jan. 1. If tallies from Mexico and Canada are added, the number of stranded gray whales has reached about 160 and counting, said Michael Milstein, spokesman for NOAA Fisheries.

U.S. scientists last month declared the die-off an “unusual mortality event,” a designation that triggered additional resources to respond to the deaths and launch an investigation.

The first private beach owners to respond, a Washington state couple, received their carcass earlier this month. Volunteers with the “stranding network” — a coalition of nonprofits, research institutions and government agencies — attached a rope to the dead whale’s tail and used a boat to tow it 3 miles along the coast to the couple’s beach, where they anchored it to tree stumps.

Mario Rivera of Port Hadlock and his veterinarian wife, Stefanie...