The carcass of a 44-foot-long whale washed ashore on Uran coast near Navi Mumbai. The decomposed body of the mammal was spotted by a group of fishermen on Thursday morning.
“The whale possibly washed ashore here during high tide late at night. In the morning today we saw it here,” a local resident told The Times of India.
Estimated to be around 20 tonnes, the whale may have died of infection, old age or shipping noise, officials said.
Marine biologists believe it was most likely a blue whale, which falls in the red list of endangered species. Blue whales are said to be one of the largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth.
The state forest department said they had taken samples to confirm the species. “The DNA test results will confirm whether the mammal is actually blue whale. However, the morphological characteristics indicate that the species is a blue whale,” deputy conservator of Alibaug forest division, Maneesh Kumar told Hindustan times.
Oceanography researcher Swapnil Tandel, who had also visited the site where the whale carcass was found, said “It certainly looks to be among those belonging to baleen whales group. Because this 20-ton whale is decomposed, it is a bit difficult to fully identify it from its appearance.”
Dead whale found at Juhu Beach in Jan, 2016/ Indian Express
According to Indian Express, Maharashtra has reported 38 cases of beached whales since 2001 followed by Gujarat (11), Karnataka (11) and Kerala (9). This is the 8th recorded case of whale carcass washing ashore in Maharashtra since 2015.
Alarmed over the increasing instances of beached whale over the last few years, environmentalists are demanding that authorities should conduct a proper research to ascertain its cause.
“The forest department must start funding a proper research on the causes of such instances of large marine species washing ashore. Besides sea pollution, oil spills, high traffic of cargo vessels, we need scientific evidence on the various factors involved here.” Environmentalist D Stalin told TOI.
