Nature & Environment
50 Feet Whale in Boston Harbor
Brooke Miller
First Posted: Oct 08, 2012 07:57 AM EDT
A large 50 feet dead Finback Whale was found floating near Deer Island in Boston Harbor on Sunday. The officials are still clueless about cause of the death as this is rarity for the area.
The boaters who first noticed this dead whale had alerted the authorities. A team of scientists from the New England Aquarium will take samples of the dead whale and examine it, in order to find the reason behind the death.
The aquarium officials believe that the whale is a Finback that may have arrived from a marine sanctuary east of Boston. It is said to be 10 to 12 years old weighing on an average between 70,000 and 90,000 pounds. According to the Whale Center of New Engaland, this specie can grow to an average length of between 45 and 70 feet. It is the second-longest whale in the world behind the blue whale.
"It's not rare to see a whale in the Boston Harbor, but it's rare to see a dead whale in the Boston Harbor," Brian Fleming, command duty officer at the US Coast Guard Base Boston was quoted in Boston Globe. "The majority of these cases happen out to sea."
"We're in an area that's got two and a half million people in a short distance from there and we're talking about an animal that has got probably 80 to 90 thousand pounds of rotting flesh so we'd have to be very deliberate, you know, in terms of where we would bring that kind of animal ashore," Tony Lacasse of the New England Aquarium was quoted by cW 56.
Experts say the whale has been dead for about three days.
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First Posted: Oct 08, 2012 07:57 AM EDT
A large 50 feet dead Finback Whale was found floating near Deer Island in Boston Harbor on Sunday. The officials are still clueless about cause of the death as this is rarity for the area.
The boaters who first noticed this dead whale had alerted the authorities. A team of scientists from the New England Aquarium will take samples of the dead whale and examine it, in order to find the reason behind the death.
The aquarium officials believe that the whale is a Finback that may have arrived from a marine sanctuary east of Boston. It is said to be 10 to 12 years old weighing on an average between 70,000 and 90,000 pounds. According to the Whale Center of New Engaland, this specie can grow to an average length of between 45 and 70 feet. It is the second-longest whale in the world behind the blue whale.
"It's not rare to see a whale in the Boston Harbor, but it's rare to see a dead whale in the Boston Harbor," Brian Fleming, command duty officer at the US Coast Guard Base Boston was quoted in Boston Globe. "The majority of these cases happen out to sea."
"We're in an area that's got two and a half million people in a short distance from there and we're talking about an animal that has got probably 80 to 90 thousand pounds of rotting flesh so we'd have to be very deliberate, you know, in terms of where we would bring that kind of animal ashore," Tony Lacasse of the New England Aquarium was quoted by cW 56.
Experts say the whale has been dead for about three days.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone