The gray whale calf is the second whale to be found beached since Jan. 14, 2023, off Fort Stevens State Park near Warrenton.

WARRENTON — A dead whale was found beached Wednesday, Jan. 18, near the Peter Iredale shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park near Warrenton, making it the second one in the past week.

Seaside Aquarium in a Facebook post identified the whale as a baby gray whale about 12 feet long.

“There are no indications that this whale was struck by a ship or died from human interaction,” the post said. “Most likely, this is a case of failure to thrive. However, until a necropsy is performed, we will not know for sure.”

A sperm whale that was found beached on Saturday, located about 100 yards from the gray whale calf, was determined to have died by ship strike following a necropsy earlier this week.

Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network will plan to conduct a necropsy on the gray whale later this week, provided the carcass remains accessible in the tides and weather.

He said the calf was likely born very early and did not survive, adding that the carcass was probably drifting for some time before it came ashore.

Milstein said the gray whale calf is of interest to researchers because they have been undergoing what is called an unusual mortality event, which is a substantial decline in population that warrants investigation.

The population produced the fewest calves on record in 2022 since counts began in 1994, according to NOAA Fisheries.

About 16,650 whales were recorded last year, which is a 38% decline from a peak of about 27,000 whales in 2016.

“The science teams have been looking especially for information that may help explain the unusually low number of calves the gray whale population has been producing,” Milstein said. “So they will look at this carcass for any evidence of what happened to the calf and why it did not survive.”