A complete carcass of a fin whale was discovered off the coast of Yilan County, the first time the world’s second-largest marine mammal has been discovered in its entirety near Taiwan, the Taiwan Cetacean Society said yesterday.
The whale washed up on Turtle Island (Guishan, 龜山島) early last month, it said.
The society wrote on Facebook that it received a report on Feb. 12 about a large baleen whale drifting in the waters surrounding Dasi Fishing Harbor (大溪漁港) in Toucheng Township (頭城).
Photo courtesy of director Zhang Hong-jie
A team was immediately dispatched to investigate and it captured rare aerial footage of the whale, estimated to be about 10m long. It seemed to have died recently, as its skin had not yet shown signs of significant peeling, it said.
However, the whale did not wash ashore and the case was initially deemed as a “sighting,” it added.
On March 3, people said they had spotted a large whale stranded on the northern coast of Turtle Island, the society said.
The shore is not safely accessible by land, so a team could not be immediately dispatched to investigate, it added.
On Thursday last week, the society said it was able to collect samples from the whale, with the assistance of the Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA).
The whale was already decomposing and its sex could not be confirmed, it added.
It seemed to have been a young fin whale, and had several fractures in its spinal column, although it is unclear if those injuries occurred before or after its death, it said.
The whale’s complete skeleton was extracted and moved to higher ground, and samples of its skin and muscles were collected and sent to the National Museum of Natural Science for analysis, it added.
On Wednesday, it was confirmed as a fin whale, a species second to blue whales in size, reaching up to 23m in length, the society said.
The fin whale is listed as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species after nearly becoming extinct due to industrial whaling.
Taiwan is the southernmost habitat for the North Pacific population of fin whales, the society added.
Separately, a humpback whale was spotted in waters off southern Taiwan in recent days. Local authorities dispatched a patrol boat on Tuesday to ensure the mammal was not disturbed by whale watchers.
Kenting National Park Service deputy director Chen Chun-shan (陳俊山) said that the marine conservationists made sure the whale was left undisturbed in waters between Pingtung County’s Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) and Houbihu (後壁湖) from about 10am to 5pm on Tuesday.
The park service and the OCA called for whale watchers to maintain a safe distance, particularly from mothers with their calves, Chen said.
National Cheng Kung University Marine Biology and Cetacean Research Center director Wang Hao-wen (王浩文) said that photographs shared online suggested that the whale might be one of four spotted last week in waters near Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱).
Humpback whales migrate south to Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines during the winter and return north in the spring, Wang said.
Although it is rare for humpback whales to come this close to Taiwan, further investigation is needed to understand why that whale moved south to Hengchun, instead of continuing north, he added.
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