OLYMPIA, Wash. - Biologists studying the carcass of a whale that washed up dead on a South Puget beach this week say the whale has no signs of obvious trauma.
Trauma would leave open the possibility the whale was struck by a ship passing through tropical waters and pushed all the way to a Northwest port. Now, based on eyewitness reports, biologists believe the rare Bryde's Whale was swimming in the Sound for at least two weeks before it died.
"It hadn't been eating. Its stomach contained no food," said John Calambokidis, Senior Research Biologist and co-founder of Cascadia Research. "Its blubber layer was also very thin."
Those are indications the whale may have died from lack of food and exposure to much colder water than it is used to. As KING 5 reported Tuesday, Bryde's whales (pronounced: BROOD-es) are warm water whales that rarely venture north of California.
Calambokidis said his group's initial research shows there has never been a sighting or stranding of a Bryde's whale recorded in the Northwestern United States. The group is awaiting DNA confirmation of the species, but is convinced at this point it is a Bryde's whale and will now try to figure out why it would venture this far north.
To add a comment, please register or login.