Pam Martin with Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network examines a dead gray whale that washed ashore in the Arroyo Beach neighborhood in West Seattle. It's reportedly the fifth dead gray whale found this month _ four in Puget Sound waters and the fifth near Vancouver, British Columbia. Marine biologists say it's not unusual for five to seven whales to die in a migration season as they make their way north to their summer feeding grounds around Alaska. But more deaths would be cause for concern.
Remi Vincentini, 6, lays flowers next to a dead gray whale that washed up on Arroyo Beach in southwest Seattle on Thursday, April 15, 2010. The 35 foot-long mammal was discovered still alive Wednesday afternoon on the beach by a nearby resident. When she discovered it she said it was still trying to breathe. NOAA officials planned to tow the whale to a nearby state park where they planned to perform a necropsy to determine why the animal died. Gray whales are not as common in Puget Sound as the resident and transient orca whales that are regularly seen in Puget Sound.
