Gray Whale

Six days after washing ashore, the carcass of 35-foot, 12-ton California gray whale was buried in the sand near Poche Beach on Monday. The mammal, which had been decapitated for research by the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, had spent the five previous days either bobbing in the storm surf or rolling about the beach near the southern end of the exclusive Beach Road community.

Biologists today are attempting to determine what caused the death of a California gray whale that washed ashore near the Seal Beach Pier over the weekend. Blubber and muscle samples removed from the 7-ton mammal will be analyzed when biologists from the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles perform a necropsy today. The 40-foot whale washed ashore Sunday night hours after boaters spotted its 35-foot carcass floating off the city pier.

A 20-foot young gray whale, apparently lost on its 12,000-mile round-trip migration between Baja and the Arctic, swam into the Alamitos Bay Marina for a few hours Saturday, then drifted in and out of the Downtown Marina, startling passersby. The whale was last seen at 4:30 p.m. at the fuel dock of the downtown marina, according to Long Beach lifeguards, who said they could not be certain it was the same whale sighted at Alamitos Bay marina.

In a rare success story for declining wildlife, the federal government announced Wednesday that the once imperiled California gray whale has "fully recovered" and will be removed from the endangered species list. The action, proposed a year ago, makes the whale the first marine mammal to be removed from the list. Only one other U.S. species, the American alligator, has been deemed to have recovered fully under the Endangered Species Act.

Whale hunters from the Makah Indian tribe harpooned a gray whale Thursday but failed to capture it after a protester riding a Jet Ski foiled the hunt that has pitted tribal rights' supporters against environmentalists trying to protect the giant beasts.

An estimated 18,000 or more gray whales are making their annual swim from Alaska to the lagoons of Baja California as Southlanders migrate to local ports for whale-watch excursions. The watchers may not spot those two TV-star gray whales that were temporarily trapped in the frozen Bering Sea late last year, but there's a good chance they'll see other likable leviathans.

A lethargic, emaciated gray whale that had wandered into Dana Point Harbor made its way back to deep water late Tuesday to the relief of boaters and marine biologists. The whale, about 35 to 40 feet long and estimated to weigh about 30 tons, was spotted in the harbor just before noon Monday. The whale briefly navigated its way out of the harbor Tuesday before circling back into port and then heading out to sea again. The Harbor Patrol tried to startle it back out to sea with noisy boat maneuvers.

Bad weather, fatigue and the threat of a protest brought the Makah's whaling crew back to shore on Tuesday with no whale in tow. Accompanied by a support boat and a small flotilla of media, Coast Guard and protest vessels, the Indian tribe's crew launched its carved cedar canoe from a Pacific beach early Tuesday in hopes of intercepting a whale migrating from Mexico to the summer feeding grounds off Alaska.