{"id":325353,"date":"2026-03-12T04:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/325353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T04:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:50:12","slug":"solving-the-mystery-of-the-west-coasts-beached-whales-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/325353\/","title":{"rendered":"Solving the mystery of the west coast’s beached whales : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

\n Scientists finally figured out why hundreds of gray whales washed up on the west coast, dead.<\/p>\n

NOAA<\/p>\n

hide caption\n <\/p>\n

toggle caption<\/p>\n

NOAA<\/p>\n

In 1999 hundreds of gray whales washed up along the west coast of North America. More in 2000. They lost an estimated 25% of their population. But then the whale population recovered and people moved on. Until it happened again in 2019. And 2020, and 2021. It’s still happening today. Host Regina G. Barber<\/a> dives into this mystery with marine ecologist Joshua Stewart<\/a>, who explains how scientists like himself solved it \u2013 and the tough questions that came up along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check out our Sea Camp series<\/a> and our limited run Sea Camp newsletter<\/a>, featuring deep dives into research, cute critters and games!<\/p>\n

Interested in more ocean mysteries? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org\/shortwave<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists finally figured out why hundreds of gray whales washed up on the west coast, dead. NOAA hide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-325353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}