In Oregon, a 40-foot endangered sperm whale washes up on the coast

 

January 16, 2023 1:34 PM

                                      According to authorities, a 40-foot sperm whale was discovered dead on the Oregon coast on Saturday after washing up on a section of sand at Fort Stevens State Park.

The whale was discovered close to the park's primary shipwreck, the Peter Iredale, and it is a member of an endangered marine mammal species, according to a Sunday Facebook post from the Seaside Aquarium. Following its discovery, the aquarium uploaded a brief video of the beached sperm whale to its social media pages.

The whale's corpse was discovered to have numerous "huge gashes," some of which are partially visible in the video and may have been caused by a ship accident, according to the aquarium.

The aquarium wrote on Facebook that it was unknown if the strike happened before or after the animal passed away. Later in the week, a necropsy will be planned to investigate this in more detail.

According to Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the necropsy might be performed as early as Monday afternoon. According to Milstein, the examination may provide more information regarding the whale's demise and its cause.

The sperm whale's lower jaw was removed by Fort Stevens State Park employees "so that the teeth remained intact for scientific purposes," according to the aquarium's report, which also stated that the whale was "believed to be a young male." According to Milstein, a sperm whale that is 40 feet long is "roughly the usual size" for an adult male.

According to NOAA, sperm whales are the biggest toothed whales on Earth, with males occasionally growing to about 60 feet in length and weighing more than 40 tonnes. They may live for up to 60 years and generally prey on fish, sharks, and other deep-water marine creatures like squid. According to Milstein, there are roughly 2,000 sperm whales in the U.S. west coast waters, but "they are less numerous this far north in winter."

According to Milstein, "Sperm whales are the third most common type of whale to strand in Oregon, behind grey whales and humpback whales, so the appearance of the sperm whale at this time of year is rather rare although we have had sperm whale strandings in winter previously."

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that although the precise number of the present, worldwide sperm whale population is unknown, estimations suggest there may be anywhere from 200,000 to 1 1/2 million of whales living in waters across the world. Following over 200 years of commercial whaling, which "greatly diminished sperm whale populations worldwide," the whales are now designated as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

As a species whose survival is still threatened for a variety of causes, the sperm whale population is "certainly expanding" since a ban on commercial fishing was imposed in 1986, according to the government agency, but it is also "still recovering." The species is vulnerable to vessel strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, underwater noise pollution, which can impair their ability to communicate, marine debris, oil spills and other contaminants, as well as various effects of climate change, according to NOAA Fisheries, which oversees conservation efforts for sperm whales.

According to NOAA, there have only been a small number of occasions when a marine vessel has fatally impacted a sperm whale. However, the agency claimed that 37 whales were hurt by vessel impacts between 2010 and 2014 throughout the Atlantic coast of North America and in the Gulf of Mexico, with comparable figures along the Pacific coast. These reports are "minimum estimates," according to NOAA, and "are likely low since it is unclear how many deaths and major injuries go unreported." Additional research has shown that marine vessels are a serious threat to whales and other marine life. One study from 2017 found that up to 80 blue, fin, and humpback whales may be struck by marine vessels along the U.S. west coast each year.

Recently, several whales, some of which belonging to endangered species, have been killed or hurt in U.S. seas. A 4-year-old North Atlantic right whale, one of the rarest in the world with only a few hundred left, was discovered to be heavily entangled in fishing gear earlier this month. The whale was discovered by an aerial survey team from Florida's Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Nearly 20 miles east of Rodanthe, North Carolina, the whale was spotted again, this time with "many wraps of line around the mouth and tail" and additional line trailing after it, according to NOAA. The agency stated that the animal was "certain to perish" because of the "many cuts throughout her body and whale lice on her head" caused by the tangled fishing lines.

A 32-foot whale washed ashore in Brigantine, New Jersey, around the same time as a 21-foot killer whale that was discovered stranded and later died after washing ashore near Daytona Beach in Florida, according to authorities. Both of these whales were believed to have been killed by marine vessels, CBS Philadelphia reported. A humpback whale named Moon, well-known and adored by scientists who have studied her, was hit by a ship earlier, in mid-December, while swimming from Canada to Hawaii, leaving her with a damaged spine and unable to use her tail. According to experts, Moon's excursion would be her "final journey" before her away.

Under the terms of a Creative Commons licence, this article has been taken from CBS NEWS. Go here to read the original article.