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

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

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.

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

Ocean scientists are concerned about dead gray whales that have washed up on the US West Coast this year at the highest rate in almost two decades.

Sixteen gray and humpback whales have been reported stranded off Washington and Oregon since April 3, the largest number in nearly two decades.