Carcass of 25-feet-long whale washes ashore

Thiruvananthapuram: G Manikandan, a cleaning staff with the city corporation, started his day thinking that it would be just another day at work, but what awaited him and his colleagues was a mammoth task.

Manikandan, along with his colleagues, was assigned the task to bury the carcass of a 25-feet-long whale, which had washed ashore at Veli in Thiruvananthapuram. “During my duty at the Veli beach it was a common practice to bury dead fishes but those were small ones. This is beyond my imagination,” said Manikandan.

Suspected to be a blue whale, this is considered to be the first instance of such a whale getting stranded at a beach in Thiruvananthapuram. “There were reports about stranding of blue whale on the coasts of Kerala in the 1970s, but it is a first in Thiruvananthapuram. From the look of it I think it is a blue whale. We have collected the DNA samples which should help us identify the species,” said A Biju Kumar, head, department of aquatic biology, University of Kerala.

It was the local fishermen, who alerted about the carcass of the whale. On hearing the news many local residents gathered to have a glimpse of the mammal despite the strong stench. Two earth movers and 20 cleaning staff of the corporation were appointed to pull the whale to the beach and later bury it. Though the efforts to pull out the whale started at around 8am, it could be buried only by 5:30pm. A six-feet pit was dug, but during the efforts to pull it into the pit the rope broke and the tides swept the carcass few metres away creating a new challenge for the staff. “The whale was so heavy that moving it even with two earth movers was a difficult task. Finally we dug three pits on the beach and buried the carcass in parts,” said A Ajayan, health inspector, Attipra zonal office. Though local residents assumed that the head of the whale was severed from the body, experts confirmed that the head was present but disfigured as the whale is assumed to have died a week ago.

“Kerala coast comes on the migratory route for these whales that are generally found in cooler water. There have been sightings in Sri Lanka too. Their route also happens to be the ship route so you cannot negate the chances of a ship hit as a reason for the death of the whale,” said Biju Kumar.

Earlier this month, carcass of a killer whale got stranded on the Puthucurichy beach near Thiruvananthapuram.