A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach, Delaware, Thursday after floating at sea for a couple of days.
(Courtesy MERR Institute)
Courtesy MERR Institute
(Courtesy MERR Institute)
Courtesy MERR Institute
(Courtesy MERR Institute)
Courtesy MERR Institute
(Courtesy MERR Institute)
Courtesy MERR Institute
A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach, Delaware, Thursday after floating at sea for a couple of days.
The MERR (Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation) Institute said, “the young 32-foot male, estimated to weigh a minimum of 20,000 pounds, was in the surf zone throughout Thursday night until heavy equipment could arrive” Friday.
That’s when the whale was towed to higher ground, for a postmortem examination.
Its necropsy team found subdermal hemorrhaging and a broken jaw on the whale’s right side.
“This type of blunt force injury is often associated with a large ship strike, and the nature of the wounds indicates that the whale was still alive when it was struck,” the MERR Institute said in a Facebook post.
The organization said the whale was buried on the beach, as “these large whales cannot be safely towed out to sea.”
Suzanne Thurman, the MERR Institute’s executive director called the event “tragic.”
“MERR’s volunteers were as wonderful as ever, and worked tirelessly to assist in examining the whale in a very short window of time. We would also like to thank DNREC [Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control] for providing heavy equipment resources for towing and burial of the whale,” Thurman said.