KOTA KINABALU: A juvenile Bryde’s Whale that was stranded and guided back to deeper waters off the Tanjung Aru beach three days ago, was found dead in a rock embankment along the same beach on Saturday (March 21).
Sabah Wildlife Department director Mohd Soffian Abu Bakar said the 3.23m juvenile whale was first sighted stranded along the shallow waters off the beach on Friday (Mar 19) and was successfully herded back to deeper waters.
However, the same whale was again detected near Kota Kinabalu’s shoreline closer to Sutera Harbour Marina waters.
“This re-stranding indicated the animal was suffering from chronic fatigue or injury,” Mohd Soffian said, adding that the whale was confirmed dead after it finally was 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 mother or human-related causes,” he said following the three hour operations on Saturday.
He said the Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry will be informed of the official cause of death once the necropsy report was completed.
There have been several reported cases of whales stranding along Sabah’s coast with the most notable the stranding of a Bryde’s whale close to a village at Pulau Gaya off Kota Kinabalu City in December 2006.
The carcass was recovered and eventually preserved and is exhibited at the Sabah Museum here 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 (UMS) and the state wildlife department is set to develop a standard operating procedure for whale strandings, covering rescue, rehabilitation, and crowd management.
The team carries out necropsy at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park to determine the cause of death.
Experts have previously said that whale stranding could be due to natural causes (illness, separation from mother, or chronic fatigue), human-related factors (ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement or noise pollution) or environmental-related stressors (shallow waters, disorientation, or following pods into coastal areas).
