Whale, rescued from Kakdwip on Thursday, found dead in Sagar
Times of India | 5 January 2025
123 Kolkata: Over 48 hours after a 16-foot Bryde's whale was rescued from a creek near Kakdwip and released in the Bay of Bengal, carcass of a whale washed ashore Sumatinagar ferry ghat near Sagar Islands on Sunday morning.
Whilst foresters hastened to the spot to identify if it was the same one, experts indicated this could be the same individual as chances of survival after whale-beaching despite all rescue efforts are very low.
Divisional forest officer Nisha Goswami said: "Our team has rushed to the spot and is looking into it." A local resident said the length of the carcass would be over 16 foot — similar to the one rescued at Kakdwip.
The whale was initially spotted on Wednesday in the Muriganga river near Ghoramara and subsequently in the same river near Kakdwip the next day. As locals tried to guide it towards waters, the whale ended up inside a creek at Lakhipur on Thursday afternoon.
Braving cold and tides, the forest dept undertook the rescue operation on Thursday afternoon itself and managed to release it in the mouth of Bay around 1 am on Friday after a nine-hour operation.
"The whale that stranded on Sunday is most likely the same individual that was refloated with considerable effort and admiration on Jan 2. Refloating large baleen whales is an exceptionally challenging exercise and survival rates after refloating are low globally," said Dipani Sutaria, an ecologist researching marine cetaceans in India and who identified it as a Bryde's whale on Thursday after TOI shared some photographs with her.
Sources indicated that from the openings on the ventral part of the carcass, it appeared to be a female whale.
The location where the whale was rescued from and the place where the carcass was found are 22-25 km apart. "It's improbable that two different whales will land up in the same zone within such a brief period unless there's generation of low-frequency sounds — like military sonar, seismic airguns or shipping — from humans in the zone that can be a threat to whales and other marine animals as they can interfere with their natural behaviours. So, this may be the same individual that got stuck in a creek on Thursday," said a source.
Bryde's whale is a baleen whale, specifically a rorqual belonging to the same classification as blue whales and Omura's whales. They inhabit the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
The Swatch of No ground offshore between India and Bangladesh harbours a resident population.