A pilot first spotted the whale last week. What caused the whale’s death isn’t yet known.

A dead male grey whale that was found floating between Sidney Island and James Island on Thursday has been towed to Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney for a necropsy.

The whale is located in an inaccessible place where scientists are unable to take a necropsy.

The Marine Mammal Center and California Academy of Sciences are reporting cause of death for one.

Gray whales are dying at twice the usual rate as a brutal migration unfolds, with whales washing up on Washington state beaches, apparently starved to death.

Three dead gray whales washed up on two different Kodiak Island beaches recently. The strandings happened within the span of a week.

Tuesday’s (September 29) sighting of a gray whale swimming and possibly feeding right off the Stanley Park Seawall brings recent sightings up to three in that area. It isn’t clear if it is the same whale or different whales in the widely reported incidents since August 12. One whale, perhaps the same animal each time, was observed for days in the same area in English Bay, sometimes travelling into Burrard Inlet and off West Vancouver’s Ambleside Beach.