40-foot dead whale washes ashore on banks of Andharmanik river

A whale carcass measuring around 40 feet has washed ashore on the banks of the Andharmanik river in Taltali upazila of Barguna.

Ziaur Rahman, forest department range officer of Taltali, said local residents spotted the whale near the river bank close to Charpara village in the upazila's Borobogi union around 7am on Wednesday.

Arifur Rahman, an environmental activist and member of the Kuakata Dolphin Rescue Committee, said the whale was spotted at the coastal estuary in the morning, and it started drifting back towards the deep sea again around 11am. On receiving the information, forest department personnel began efforts to recover it.

Range officer Ziaur Rahman said the dead whale was drifting towards the Andharmanik river on the border between Kalapara and Taltali, and efforts were under way to bring it towards Nishanbaria. He said necessary information and samples would be collected from the whale before it is buried.

Mir Mohammad Ali, assistant professor of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, said based on the photos, it initially appeared to be a baleen whale, possibly a Bryde's whale.

He said it is not possible to say the exact cause of the whale's death right now. He said this could have happened due to being trapped in a net, collision with a large vessel, marine pollution or ingestion of plastic, or it becoming ill and being carried into shallow water by currents. He said there is also a possibility that it entered the river during high tide and got stranded during low tide.

Mir Mohammad Ali said an on-site examination is needed to determine the actual cause of death. He further said that if samples could be collected from the whale's carcass and its skeleton preserved, these could be used for research and educational purposes.