THE humpback whale that was euthanised at Walvis Bay on Sunday, washed out on the beach at Swakopmund’s Mile 4 suburb – nearly 50 kilometres north from where it was euthanised.
According to Jack Fearey of the Namibian Dolphin Project, the doomed young female whale’s carcass had become bloated after she died, and due to high seas and strong winds, typical of strong Benguela Current, it was dragged across the sea to where the carcass was dumped now.
Members of the public that live in the Mile 4 and Pebble Beach suburbs told that the carcass was seen floating toward the shore on Tuesday, before it was beached late Tuesday night.
Fearey said that samples have already been taken of the animal to determine whether she was fatally injured, or suffered from a sickness. The possibility of the whale dying from ingesting plastic floating in the oceans was also not ruled out – an issues which is becoming more and more a concern due to the large scale global ocean pollution.
“We will have to see. It is very hard getting into a whale’s gut considering the size of the animal, so it will take a lot of work. For now our challenge is how to get rid of the carcass which is now in a built-up area,” he said, adding that the matter was already brought to the attention of the municipality.
In previous cases, carcasses that washed out near towns were are cut up and loaded onto a truck and buried away from where it could not be dug out or cause a stink.
The humpback whale beached at Walvis Bay’s Independence Beach last week. Eight attempts were made to push it back into the deeper waters, but the whale however kept coming back to the shore. It was decided to euthanise it, instead of letting it suffer further.
