May Have Been One Trapped in Gill Net : Remains of Young Whale Wash Ashore

Remains of a California gray whale, believed to be the one sighted March 17 dead and tangled in a gill net off Los Angeles Harbor, were found Monday on the sands near the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach.

Only some pieces of skin and blubber, a few bones--including two feet of the mammal’s vertebrae--and some strands of a net washed ashore, according to Judy Chovak, science education specialist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

“The whale was a 1-year-old female about 22 feet long when it died,” Chovak said. “Decomposition and attacks by sharks and sea birds apparently accounted for the condition it was found in.”

The remains were picked up by a special four-wheel-drive truck donated by the Ford Motor Co. to the museum’s Marine Mammal Program for retrieval of stranded sea creatures up to 20 feet long, Chovak said.

She said only the vertebrae would be saved and put on display at the museum for educational purposes.

The use of gill nets by commercial fishermen along the routes used by the gray whales in their annual migrations between the Bering Sea and Baja California has been a controversial subject in recent years.

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who is the author of three bills that would ban net fishing along the migration route, said Monday that whether the remains found Monday belonged to the whale seen March 17 or not, it “proves that another whale has died in the nets.”

“So we know it’s happening,” Allen said. “And I cannot understand why we don’t have closure regulations as they do north of Pt. Conception.”