Researchers collect samples from a beached humpback whale carcass Saturday on a Sitka Sound beach. (Photo by Joe Serio)
A dead whale found floating near Sitka last week was probably killed by a ship. That’s the conclusion of a pathologist who inspected the carcass.
The humpback whale was spotted floating in Sitka Sound Sept. 13.
A team from the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the University of Alaska Southeast arrived last weekend to check out the carcass, which was beached.
Kathy Burek of Alaska Veterinary Pathology Services says the whale was a sub-adult, about 42 feet long. It had been dead for about a week.
“It had indications of hemorrhage where it had been struck and possibly carried by a ship. So there are areas of trauma that look convincing that it had had a major blunt impact,” she said.
She says it was likely a large vessel, such as a tanker, cruise ship or ferry. But she’s not positive.
“We can’t quite say it definitively at this point. First of all, we’ve only had a limited amount of time to access the animal because of the tides. Also, because there’d been a lot of changes because the animal had rotted for a while,” she said.
Researchers collect samples from a beached humpback whale carcass Saturday on a Sitka Sound beach. (Drone photo by Joe Serio)
The team cut into the whale, removing blubber and other tissue for further study.
Burek says they climbed into the carcass for the difficult task of finding and removing its ear plugs.
“These plugs are formed by yearly laying down of ear wax. And since a whale doesn’t have a big opening out from the ear, it just tends to accumulate. If you can get that, there are ways to count those rings and be able to be more definitive about how old the animal was,” she said.
This whale’s age is not yet available. Burek said it takes a month to analyze the plugs.
Other samples will be used to determine whether the whale had been exposed to toxic algae blooms. Those have become more common as climate change has warmed the Pacific Ocean.
Burek says scientists are also interested in discovering what the whale had been eating. In a southern Baranof Island whale death earlier this summer, the animal turned out to be malnourished.
“We didn’t actually figure out a cause of death at all on that one. But its body condition did not look optimal, so that’s another reason why we’re doing those studies on nutrition,” she said.
The most recent whale carcass was left tied up on the beach.
Burek calls it a present for the bears. But she also hopes follow-up examination will reveal more information about its injuries.
