A phone and e-mail list was developed in order to improve communication among stranding network members and to keep each other informed about important stranding events. Hopefully, improved stranding response and data collection by stranding network members will allow scientists to begin to crack the case of eastern Pacific gray whale strandings. The gray whale health investigation has implications for other populations as well. In their use of coastal environments and their habit of bottom-feeding, gray whales may be among the first animals to visibly show impacts from anthropogenic pollution of the ocean. As such, gray whales serve as canaries in the coal mine, or sentinels of the marine environment.
Factors affecting their population can also impact other animals, including humans.
As fellow inhabitants of the ocean planet, we are called upon to listen, and respond, to their message. Since the northward migration is now over, The Marine Mammal Center and other institutions and organizations involved in investigating the cause of these strandings in the Bay Area met recently to establish an investigatory preparedness plan for the next migration period. The total number of dead gray whales now documented along the Pacific coast of North America and Mexico is 350, compared to 273 in 1999. In prior years the numbers documented were less than 50. It is important to bear in mind that not all dead gray whales are counted because they may strand in remote areas or areas where no organization is tracking them.