Hundreds of hikers, scientists and schoolkids are flocking to a northern California beach to see the carcass of an 80-foot pregnant blue whale that washed ashore last weekend after apparently colliding with a ship.
The dead whale and its fetus washed up Saturday on a rocky beach in Bean Hollow State Park near Pescadero. It's believed to be the first time in more than 30 years that a blue whale -- the world's largest known creature -- has washed up on U.S. shores. Researchers collecting tissue and bone samples from the whale's 75-ton carcass concluded Wednesday that it died of blunt-force trauma, likely in a collision with a large boat, the Half Moon Bay Review reported.
"Because the whale was on its back, we couldn't tell anything as far as possible cause of death," Guy Oliver, a research fellow at the nearby Long Marine Lab, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. "I'd say it probably died four to five days (before reaching the shore). The fetus was about 50 feet from the carcass, and most likely came out, after it died, from a discharge of gas pressure." ...
via 80-Foot Pregnant Whale Washes Up on California Beach.
Friday, October 8, 2010
80-Foot Pregnant Whale Washes Up on California Beach
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The last blue whale to wash up on our shores here in nor-cal was the last one that was run over by a boat,@ a couple months ago. The whale was struck off the Mendocino coast by a private sonar ship that had been contracted by an undisclosed government agency. The sonar boats use powerful new technologies to map the ocean bottom, and these technologies both attract and confuse the blue whales to the point that these ocean floor mapping vessels are required to have extensive lookouts for whales about to collide with them. In the incident off of Mendocino, it was admitted that they did not take any precautionary steps to avoid colliding with whales. The blue whale was struck by the boat, and then slowly died, and then was allowed to simply wash up on the beach and slowly rot. Just think about how many blue whales have been run over and didn't wash up on shore.
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