GRAY WHALES REBOUND; DEATHS OFF COAST NOT CAUSE FOR ALARM.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Dozens of California gray whales have died off the Los Angeles and Mexico coasts during this year's migration, but biologists said Tuesday the deaths are the result of their rebounding population and are not a cause for alarm.

Once hunted nearly to extinction, the gray whale has recovered under government protection. As more whales make the 13,000-mile round-trip between feeding grounds in the North Pacific and birthing lagoons in Baja California, the number dying also will grow, biologists said.

``The majority of it is natural and people just need to start expecting more and more dead gray whales,'' said Joe Cordaro, the National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who tracks marine mammal deaths in California.

``With the population increasing, the better chance you have, if there's natural mortality occurring, to see more dead whales turning up,'' he said.

In California, 11 have turned up dead from San Diego to San Francisco Bay so far this year. One was buried Thursday at Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey and the Coast Guard towed one out to sea Monday because it was a navigational hazard after turning up floating near the fishing pier in Los Angeles Harbor, he said.

About 50 dead gray whales have been found in Mexican waters this year, a high number that has sparked some concern.

With more than a month to go in this year's migration, Cordaro said the number of dead gray whales could top last year's record 30.

The increase would mirror the population gains that ultimately led to the gray whale's removal from the endangered species list in 1994. Since then, the population has increased from 23,000 to more than 26,000, Cordaro said.

``When you have animals of this size dying, people forget that this happens all the time,'' he said.

It has been especially difficult for whale lovers, who watch the annual migration from January to mid-May off the Southern California coast. Many gray whales come close enough to shore to be observed daily by census takers at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Migration is most treacherous for juveniles because their immune systems are not mature, and they may not eat enough off Alaska in summer to survive the winter journey, said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who coordinates the census for the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Cetacean Society.

``This is a pretty vulnerable time,'' she noted. ``Some of them are going to die. But when you have highly public things that people can see, that's when people get concerned.''

Nearly all of the dead gray whales have been juveniles, and there have been few reports of whales struck by ships or tangled in fishing nets to suggest other than natural causes, Cordaro said.

The gray whale deaths in Mexico might be a result of the mammals moving farther south than normal in search of warmer waters for breeding, coming in closer contact with human activity. Gray whales even have been seen in the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California, far from the lagoons they favor on the Pacific Coast, which are cooler than normal as a result of the La Nina weather pattern.

One of the breeding areas where many of the gray whales were observed this year was virtually empty of whales a year ago, said John Heyning, curator and marine mammal biologist for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

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PHOTO San Diego lifeguards position a dead whale to be towed from a cove in La Jolla, Calif.

John Gastaldo/Associated Press