Stranded juvenile whale found dead along Sabah beach

KOTA KINABALU – A juvenile Bryde’s whale that was stranded and guided back to deeper waters off the Tanjung Aru Beach in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, was found dead on a rock embankment on the same beach on March 21.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Mohd Soffian Abu Bakar said the 3.23m juvenile whale was first sighted stranded in shallow waters off the beach on March 19 and was successfully herded back to deeper waters.

But the same whale was again detected near Kota Kinabalu’s shoreline, closer to the waters of Sutera Harbour Marina.

“This re-stranding indicated the animal was suffering from chronic fatigue or injury,” Mr Mohd Soffian said, adding that the whale was confirmed dead after it was finally stranded at Tanjung Aru’s Beach 3 area, close to a resort.

He said a team was sent to the area at around 3.30pm and immediately cordoned off the area while taking biological samples from the carcass, apart from carrying out measurements and other data.

He said the samples were sent to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park Clinic for necropsy analysis to determine the cause of death.

“We want to establish if it died of natural factors due to separation from its mother or human-related causes,” he said following the three-hour operation on March 21.

He added that the Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry will be informed of the official cause of death once the necropsy report is completed.

There have been several reported cases of whales stranding along Sabah’s coast, with the most notable being the stranding of a Bryde’s whale close to a village in Pulau Gaya, off Kota Kinabalu city, in December 2006.

The carcass was recovered and eventually preserved, and it is exhibited at the Sabah Museum as an educational display on marine conservation.

Sabah has recorded about seven whale strandings in waters off the west coast of the state over the last two decades.

A special task force comprising Universiti Malaysia Sabah and the state wildlife department is set to develop a standard operating procedure for whale strandings, covering rescue, rehabilitation and crowd management. The team will carry out a necropsy at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park to determine the cause of death.

Experts have previously said that whale strandings can be due to natural causes, such as illness, separation from the mother, or chronic fatigue; human-related factors, such as ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement or noise pollution; or environmental-related stressors, such as shallow waters, disorientation or following pods into coastal areas. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK