Oct
17
2007
What’s With the Whales
by James Mrohs
posted in News |
What do you do with a 75-foot long 100-ton Blue Whale carcass laying on your beach? Better yet, what do you do with three of them? The easiest way to dispose of these massive beasts has simply been to tow them out to sea.
Throughout September, three dead Blue Whales were found around the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, Ventura Harbor, and Long Beach Harbor in fairly close succession. These behemoths of the sea can grow over 100-feet long and with over 200 tons at full adulthood, but are fairly uncommon to encounter in open water, despite being the largest animal on earth. Thus, finding three in such short order decreased became a top concern for many local marine wildlife experts.
After critically inspecting the animals for any cause of death, the two blue whales whose bodies were beached were towed out about 20 miles to open ocean, and the third found in the water simply towed farther away, in hopes that they would simply sink like any animal eventually does.
Unfortunately, eventually did not come soon enough for two of these dead giants, two of them were found beached again within two weeks. The last whale was found beached again two weeks later on October 4th, leading some to initially believe it was a fourth dead whale, scientists later confirmed it was in fact one that had already been towed out to sea.
Tho inspection of the body the second two whale found were determined to have suffered many broken ribs, suggesting they were hit by ships. The cause of death for the third whale is unknown, but scientists did find the stomach to be empty, though this only indicates the whale had not eaten within days of its death.
Blue Whales are a threatened species, considered endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and its numbers were last estimated at no more than 12,000 in 2002. While Blue Whales are known to swim through the same channels around Ventura and Santa Barbara that large shipping boats do, it is unprecedented for so many to be involved in an incident so close together. A curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History has said that greater sources of food in the channel may be attracting more whales than normal.