In 2019, gray whales inexplicably began to die by the scores along the Pacific coast.
By the end of the year, whale watchers and government scientists were stunned that hundreds were perishing, still with no clear cause. In San Francisco Bay, where I live, 34 had died. That was when Carolyn Cole and I set out to find answers.
Originally, we had a plan to follow the whales on their yearly migration, starting in Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula, where these whales appear every spring to bask and reproduce in warm, protected inlets. Then we would work our way north up the coast.