ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The nearly 50-foot-long fin whale that washed up on a beach near the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail in Anchorage is now very difficult to see from the shoreline.
Alaska’s News Source was at the scene — just West of Westchester Lagoon — where Alaskans flocked to see the whale described by biologists as a “very young” female. With large ice chunks scattered across the frozen mudflats, it was hard to discern where the whale was now.
According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) biologists, the dead whale is still on the beach and plans are in place to see if more samples can be collected.
“NOAA Fisheries is going out with the Alaska Veterinary Pathology Services, and we’re going to look in the next couple of days and look at the whale and see if it is thawed enough that maybe samples could be collected,” said Barbara Mahoney, a fisheries biologist with NOAA.
Mahoney said she’s not sure what samples can be taken from the whale, but biologists are still working to find out how the whale died.
“Well, it’s been dead almost on two months, since Nov. 16, so I’m not sure what valuable tissues will be collected,” she explained. “But it’s been frozen. So we will look at collecting some additional samples.
“We are very interested in seeing some of the bones and see if there was some kind of ship strike.”
She says normally the animal would be badly decomposed at this point, but cold weather has kept the whale frozen.
Initially, samples were taken and a few tests were returned.
“[The whale] was negative for avian influenza and it was negative for Francisella tularemia, which are 2 diseases,” Mahoney said. “Those were the early results back and and we should be getting some results within this month.”
Mahoney said that when the whale was washed ashore on Nov. 16, it was brought in by a 33.3-foot high tide. She estimates that it will take a 32-foot or higher tide to take the whale back out to sea.
While it may be difficult to spot from the shore, Mahoney believes it’s still in the same spot, but now deflated and surrounded by large chunks of ice.
“What I think happened is the ice chunks from the mid to later part of November moved up with the tides in early December,” she surmised.
“And so it, I don’t think the whale moved at all. I say that because there was that poem [from the Alaska Native blessing] there and there was some other parts of the tail was still there, so some of the parts of the animal just had moved.”
Mahoney said biologists are using extreme caution when examining the whale. She urges the public to do the same.
“I do want to say that if people are continuing to go out to this whale, they need to be very cautious,” she explained. “One, with the tides, and two, with the condition of the ice and the mud.”
“And I think it’s going to be very slippery and we have heard that there was a rescue of somebody that had been stuck out there with the tides coming around.”
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