A humpback whale met a sad end. In a Facebook post, the Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network (LMMN) revealed that a 29-foot-long juvenile humpback whale was found dead on Bird Island in South Carolina.
The local CBS affiliate reported that the whale was first seen floating off North Carolina’s Oak Island on March 15. According to the outlet, it landed on the jetty between North Myrtle Beach and Sunset Beach the following day.
Due to weather, the LMMN told the outlet that they could not respond to the incident until March 17.
29-foot-long Humpback Whale Found Dead in South Carolina
After the whale was discovered, The Brunswick Public Works moved the animal to Sunset Beach, North Carolina. While there it underwent a necropsy, according to the Facebook post.
The post noted that “tests and samples will take months to finalize” a cause of death for the whale. However, the nonprofit said that they “suspect this animal met some trauma prior to death.”
After the necropsy, the whale was buried at North Carolina’s Sunset Beach, Lauren Rust, LMMN’s executive director, told USA Today.
Since 2016, a combined 34 humpback whales have died in the Carolinas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Since those numbers are significantly elevated from the past, the situation was declared an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) in 2017. That classification signifies a stranding event that is unexpected, involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population, and demands immediate response
As for the cause of the animal’s deaths, the NOAA said 40 percent of examined whales had evidence of either ship strike or entanglement.
The NOAA has assembled an independent team of scientists to review data and determine the next steps amid the UME.
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