Dead humpback washed ashore

The carcass of an endangered humpback whale has washed up off Cape Island, South Carolina. Researchers are still trying to determine its cause of death. The whale's location made for a difficult day's work for National Ocean Service biologist Wayne McFee.

"We were very limited ... it took us an hour and a half to walk to the animal today with all our gear," McFee said. "We couldn't come from the beach and had to get to it from the back side of the island, and there's a big marsh back there."

The humpback's enormous, bloated carcass was first reported floating on the open ocean 18 miles offshore from Charleston on 7 January, but pushed by southerly winds, the creature eventually drifted north and washed up on a beach in the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, 3 days ago.

When McFee and biologists Dean Cain, Lauren Beddila and Leslie Burdett reached the animal, they found a 45-foot, 9.5-inch-long female that had likely been floating dead for at least a week. Female humpbacks can reach up to 52 feet in length, so it was likely that this whale was a young adult.

With the tide rising and daylight fading, the team only had time to take basic measurements, gather samples of skin and blubber and a make quick cutaway examination of the left side of the whale's skull. These early measurements only determined that the whale did not die by fishing line entanglement or a blow to the head from a passing ship.

"There were also a number of shark bites, and I was wondering if that or a collision killed the whale. But we didn't see any evidence of that," McFee said.

A further examination of the humpback today should help determine whether a ship might have impacted the whale's body, or if the animal died of disease, perhaps. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesperson Blair Mase said that, there was no indication that the Navy was conducting any sonar exercises that might have damaged the whale's hearing and led to its death.

McFee added that the animal was so badly decomposed that the cause of her demise might never be determined. Because humpback whales are listed as an endangered species, researchers typically try to conduct thorough examinations on any dead ones that wash ashore.