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The most photogenic whale in California has ended her life as she lived it, a cause célèbre.
In life, Fran was a frolicking tourist sensation, a regular visitor to Monterey Bay who thrilled onlookers with her bold curiosity and unique tail pattern.
In death, she’s become a symbol of the perils of maritime traffic, renewing calls to require oceanic speed limits and move shipping lanes. Her hulking body, documented in more than 277 official photos since her birth in 2005, made landfall Sunday afternoon on a Half Moon Bay beach near the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
She broke her neck in a collision with a ship, according to a necropsy performed Monday by Sausalito’s Marine Mammal Center.
“She was roadkill,” said Ted Cheeseman, a naturalist who is building a massive database of whales based on photos from three major research centers and citizen scientists.
Fran ranked No. 1 in California sightings of humpback whales.
Her demise was an untimely end to a life that could have lasted decades longer. She died at age 17; humpbacks live, on average, 45 or 50 years.
She is the fifth whale to be killed by ships near San Francisco this year. Many more are thought to have died, unnoticed. But the majestic species’ numbers have dramatically recovered in the nearly 50 years since commercial whaling was banned. The nation’s last whaling station — on the Richmond waterfront — closed in 1971.
The fate of her calf, who had stayed by her side, is unknown. She was no longer actively nursing, so the calf is feeding independently, according to Pádraig Duignan, director of pathology for The Marine Mammal Center.
On Tuesday, spectators still gathered to gaze at Fran’s pungent 50-foot-long carcass, which bloated like a balloon and then deflated.
“A huge, giant gray orb,” recounted journalist David Pogue, who witnessed its arrival on Sunday while walking the beach with his wife. “Magnificent and sad.”
The news hit California’s whale-loving community hard.
“My heart sank, because I saw her with her calf just last month,” said Cheeseman. “It was like seeing an old friend.”
Naturalist Kate Spencer was stunned by the news, sent via texts from friends and colleagues. “It just stopped me in my tracks,” said Spencer, owner of Fast Raft Ocean Safaris. “I thought we were going to get to watch her for decades.”
Whales are Monterey Bay’s biggest attraction, but Fran was something special.
She wintered in Guerrero, Mexico, but headed north in the spring. Most commonly seen around Moss Landing and Marina del Rey, she was easily recognized by her size, gracefully rounded dorsal fin and a characteristic black-and-white tail pattern.
“Fran was one of the biggest and most beautiful humpbacks in Monterey Bay. She was huge — long and and broad and very fat, which means she was very, very healthy,” said Spencer.
“She had this signature move of arching her back and lifting the base of her tail like she was going to flick it up — and then she’d just gently sink back down in the water. She was a master of conserving energy,” Spencer said. “It was this beautiful fakeout.”
Fran had personality to match her size.
“She really liked hanging out with boats,” said Colleen Talty of Monterey Bay Whale Watch. “I’ve had probably at least two friendly encounters with her where she just came up to the boat, rolled around and seemingly stared at the people.”
Even by the standards of whale photography, Fran’s images were the stuff of high drama. In one, she leaped for the sky, an embodiment of the exuberance of the moment. In another, her flawless tail was framed by bright blue waters.
“Passengers always rush over to the side of the boat, with cameras. I’ve had passengers cry. I’ve teared up, as well,” said Talty. “It’s just a very beautiful experience to be that close to something so big and so majestic.”
She had also contributed to science, wearing video cameras on suction cups for two years. The footage provides information about how whales behave.
Named by Scotts Valley naturalist Ferd Bergholz in honor of his late wife, Fran first came to California after her birth in southern Mexico’s warm winter waters. Born to a whale dubbed “Big Fin,” she was large even as a calf.
Monterey Bay became her annual destination. Marine biologists used to think that humpback whales traveled all the way to Alaska for summer feeding. Now they know that many are happy staying here.
She’d sometimes wander north to the Farallones, or south to the Big Sur coast or even Morro Bay, said Cheeseman. “But Monterey Bay was her home, much of the year. It’s basically her grocery store and her kitchen.”
Eight years ago, she lost her first-born calf. But last fall, she was blessed by another.
The necropsy revealed that she had been struck on her right side by a large vessel, “probably at velocity,” according to Duignan. The skull was dislocated from the spinal cord, suggesting she died instantly, he said.
Once hunted nearly to extinction, humpback whales are still considered endangered but are making a comeback. The International Whaling Commission’s final moratorium on commercial harvest, in effect since 1985, has played a major role in the recovery of the species. NOAA estimates there are now nearly 5,000 humpbacks off the West Coast.
But they live in a giant obstacle course, their habitat overlapping with major shipping arteries. So they suffer from entanglement in fishing gear, underwater noise — and vessel strikes.
There were 49 ship-related fatalities on endangered species of large whales in California from 2007–2020, but researchers estimate that these incidents represent a small percentage of the total number of ship strikes occurring since most deaths by large vessels go unnoticed and whales often sink after death.
It is a clash that is playing out in increasing intensity around the world, as maritime transport became a fixture in roughly 90% of world trade.
“But there has been pretty steady progress” toward easing the dangers, said Cotton Rockwood, senior marine ecologist with Petaluma-based Point Blue Conservation Science.
Several years ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration extended the three shipping lanes in the approach to San Francisco Bay, which reduced interactions between ships and whales within Cordell Bank and the Gulf of the Farallones national marine sanctuaries, he said.
There are also efforts to reduce the speeds of the largest ships from 23 to 11 miles per hour, he said. While that doesn’t prevent collisions, an injured animal is more likely to survive. A Vessel Speed Reduction program creates seasonal and predictable slow speed zones. Cooperation among the program’s San Francisco Bay members is increasing, from 50% in 2018 to 68% in 2020. But efforts are voluntary.
Related Articles Environment | ‘Red list’ warning bumps lobster from the menu Environment | Ship strike probably killed humpback whale off Bay Area coast More whales could be saved if shipping lanes moved slightly off the edge of the Continental Shelf, where the densest populations of whales congregate to eat, said Rockwood. It would also help if the slow-down zones to be extended, with mandatory.
On Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity will be in federal district court in Oakland to challenge a federal failure to protect whales from ship strikes. The nonprofit is suing the U.S. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to meet Endangered Species Act consultation requirements.
Meanwhile, hopes are pinned on the survival of Fran’s female calf. Born last November, she arrived early in the season, so has a head start. She’s big and healthy, say scientists. It’s not known if she is still nursing.
But the big Monterey Bay feels like an emptier place without Fran.
“It’s such a devastating loss, to think that we’ll never see her again, after seeing her every single summer,” said Talty. “And we were the cause, which makes it even worse.”
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