Dead blue whale washes ashore at Guhagar beach

MUMBAI: On Friday morning, a decomposed carcass of a 35-foot-long blue whale, the largest mammal in the world, washed ashore at Guhaghar beach in Ratnagiri district.

MUMBAI: On Friday morning, a decomposed carcass of a 35-foot-long blue whale, the largest mammal in the world, washed ashore at Guhaghar beach in Ratnagiri district.

HT Image

This is the second such incident in the state within a month’s span and the fourth this year. Officials from the state forest department said the carcass had washed ashore at 6.30am.

“We reached the spot by 7am and found that the mammal’s internal organs had come out. Since the body was in a highly decomposed state, it could be concluded that the whale had died a fortnight ago in the deep sea,” said Vikas Jagtap, divisional forest officer (Chiplun), Ratnagiri.

Jagtap said the carcass was buried at the beach itself. “Since the body had already decomposed, we could not conduct a post-mortem. However, the mammal’s tissue samples were collected and will be sent to the state mangrove cell in Mumbai for further analysis,” he said.

Speaking to HT, residents who thronged the beach to see the dead mammal claimed there were no injury marks on the whale’s body. “The actual size of the whale could have been over 42-feet. Since the carcass was highly decomposed, it was difficult to ascertain it length,” said Akshay Khare, a local.

Scientists said maximum number of dead marine mammals in India, in the past one year, have recorded along Maharashtra’s coastline. “The authorities must immediately carry out pollution and microbial studies to test the bacteria along the coast of Maharashtra,” said E Vivekanandan, consultant and scientist, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI).