Forest officials along with locals burying the carcass of a whale at Mangala river mouth in Puri Tuesday.
Puri: Forest department officials Tuesday recovered the skeletal remains of a whale near the Mangala river estuary here.
While the length of the whale’s skeletal remains was stated to be 38 ft, forest department officials were clueless about the species the whale belongs to.
With Tuesday’s recovery, the number of carcasses of the aquatic creature that washed ashore in the state in the last 12 days rose to four.
The carcass of a 32-foot-long sperm whale was washed ashore near the Rushikulya estuary in Ganjam district February 3. Two days after this incident, the carcass of a 60-foot-long whale was spotted on the Pentha beach in Kendrapara district. Similarly, the carcass of a 30-foot-long whale washed ashore at Baliharchandi near Brahmagiri in the district here February 9.
“Whales usually live in the deep sea. They cannot survive in water less than 15 ft deep. We suspect the whales died after they entered into the shallow water on the coast in these parts of the state,” said P Jayshankar, director of Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA) in Bhubaneswar.
Puri forest officer Chittaranjan Mishra said, “There is also a possibility that the whales died in the deep sea due to reasons yet to be ascertained.” PNN
