Congressman proposes bill to help prevent whale deaths in the San Francisco Bay

A Bay Area congressman rolled out a new plan that aims to make Bay Area waters safer for migrating whales.

This comes after a dead whale was spotted this week near Alcatraz, marking the ninth dead whale reported in Northern California waters in a matter of weeks.

“Just over a month, we have seen a total of nine whales, dead in either San Francisco Bay seven of them, or in the outer waters along the coast bringing us up to nine,” said Dr. Jeff Boehm with the Marine Mammal Center.

While marine experts continue to investigate, they say at least one of the nine deaths was likely linked to a ship strike, an issue linked to dozens of whale deaths in the past several years.

The Marine Mammal Center says the safety of the whales is critical, as data shows an increasing number are now spending their time in Bay waters.

“These are animals that migrate epically from Alaskan waters down to Mexico and back up more, and more often our team of scientists at the Marine Mammal Center is seeing them spend time in San Francisco Bay foraging, getting nutrition here which they don’t typically haven’t historically been seen to do,” Boehm said.

Now Bay Area Congressman Sam Liccardo has introduced a bill that aims to help prevent whale deaths in the Bay.

“At least 40% of the whale deaths that we have been seeing in the Bay are attributed to these collisions between ships and the gray whales,” he said.

The bill would establish a pilot program that includes a dedicated coast guard "Whale Desk" where people can report whale sightings.

The agency could then issue guidance to all boaters in the area and track where the whales show up most often.

“We have GPS and we know particularly with new technology namely artificial intelligence there is more we can do to collect large data sets that can help folks anticipate the pathways of these migrating whales and hopefully discern clearly where the safe passages are,” Liccardo said.

“He is really shining a light on an issue we have been discussing here in our conversation and that is the need for building on what is already a collaborative and cooperative team of stakeholders in San Francisco Bay but bringing more resources, bringing more attention encouraging even more communication,” Boehm said.

Liccardo said if it proves successful it’s a model that could potentially spread along the Pacific Coast and East Coast.