The whale discovered Monday morning in Sangatte carries “abnormal stigmata” and cannot be moved into the sea.
AFP couple
uA 7.60 m long beaked whale was discovered Monday morning on Sangatte beach on the north coast of France, where specialists were hoping it could leave with the rising tide, worried about an “exceptional” stranding of a mammal. normally familiar arctic marine.
The cetacean, a female “carrier of abnormal stigmata”, was “probably stranded by disorientation,” Jacky Karpouzopoulos, president of the Mammalogical Coordination of Northern France (CMNF), told AFP.
The stranding of this specimen of boreal species, “which lives near the Arctic coasts” is “exceptional, in 40 years of activity I had never seen it”, he added. “It can’t be moved” to help her get back to sea, she explained.
“Superficial wounds”
The cetacean has a bleeding wound to the head, an AFP journalist noted on the spot. “These are superficial injuries, caused by the shock on the switches,” and not the cause of his grounding, according to the mayor of the city, Guy Allemand. Should he succumb, the animal, according to him stranded during the previous tide, in the night, should be subjected to an autopsy on site in the early afternoon, before the intervention of a rendering team.
In February, a 9.53m female humpback whale was found dead, stranded, on a beach in northern France, which is also “exceptional” according to Mr Karpouzopoulos.
The discovery in the spring of an orca lost in the Seine had sparked controversy in France on the actions to be taken, led by the international NGO for the defense of the oceans Sea Shepherd. The NGO had christened the killer whale, finally dead, “Sedna”, goddess of the sea.
About 200 pilot whales died in September after washing up on an exposed, wave-battered beach in Australia.
