CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / SUNSET BEACH

A dead gray whale calf washed up Sunday in shallow waters just off Sunset Beach in Orange County.

The male calf was discovered in the surf near 19th Street and Pacific Coast Highway, said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a marine biologist who directs an annual census of the cetaceans as they pass the Palos Verdes Peninsula on their northern and southern migrations.

The calf apparently was struck by a ship’s propeller, leaving three deep, parallel lacerations in his side, but further medical tests were needed to determine whether the injuries occurred before or after the whale died, Schulman-Janiger said.

Gray whales migrate down the California coast each winter to the lagoons off the Baja peninsula, where mother whales nurse their calves. The whales head north again in the spring, with mothers and calves lagging several weeks behind grown males.

Census-takers had seen the first of the calves and mothers in recent days. Five to eight of the whales typically wash up on the California coast each year.

-- Joel Rubin