6-metre Minke whale dead on Fundy Beach, Digby, Nova Scotia

February 16, 2012
Jonathan Riley

The Digby Courier

The Municipality of the District of Digby has drawn a line in the sand of Sandy Cove.

A 6-metre whale washed up on the Fundy Beach sometime last weekend and the municipality says they aren’t touching it.

Carol Barnes, Erin van Duedekom, Thom Barnes and Ian Barnes came out from Digby to see the whale corpse in Sandy Cove, Tuesday, Feb. 14.

“The province owns the beach, the federal government manages the whales, and I don’t see where we come into it,” says the municipality’s deputy CAO Gordon Wilson. “We hope clearer heads will prevail here and the responsibility for the removal of these animals will start migrating to the proper authorities.”

Maurice Comeau, regional supervisor for the department of Natural Resources, says his department will not be removing the whale.

“Traditionally that’s the responsibility of the municipality.”

The Municipality of the District of Digby did pay for a backhoe to bury a humpback on the same Sandy Cove beach in March of 2008.

Wilson didn’t have the exact costs for that whale but he says costs can vary from $1,000 for a small whale and up to $10,000 for larger harder-to-get-to ones.

“And ironically we have to get permission from the Department of Natural Resources to bury the whale on their beach.”

Wilson says no one has ever shown the municipalities any legislation, agreement or letter of understanding that points to it being the municipalities’ responsibility.

Last fall when a whale washed up in Saulnierville near the Comeau Seafood Wharf, the Municipality of the District of Clare was also prepared to draw a line in the sand.

Comeau Seafoods however hired Spectacle Lake to take care of the whale and the municipality doesn’t know who paid for that.

“We don’t know if DFO reimbursed Comeau Seafoods or if the province did,” said Warden Jean Melanson of the District of Clare. “And so long as we don’t get a bill, we aren’t asking any questions.”

During discussions at the time, staff from Natural Resources showed the municipality a 2004 Emergency Response Plan from the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour. That document referred to a section of the Health Act, which made it the municipality’s responsibility to remove mammals that posed a health risk.

Those sections of the Health Act were however repealed in 2004 and the new Health Protection Act makes no mention of dead marine mammals but does say the removal of “deleterious substances” is the responsibility of the landowner.

Melanson says whales wash up on the Clare shore on a yearly basis. He has seen as many as three on the beach at one time. Normally he says, if they aren’t smelling and are away from settled areas, they are allowed to decompose on the beach over the winter.

“A dead whale is not a health hazard,” says Melanson. “It’s smelly. It’s a nuisance but it’s not a health hazard.”

Melanson took his concerns to the rural caucus meeting of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities. The caucus sent a letter to Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, John MacDonnell at the end of January asking “that the matter of jurisdiction for dead marine mammals be removed from municipal units within the province.”

Warden Linda Gregory says it is a good time to make a stand.

“It’s a small whale and it’s winter,” she said. “It’s a good time to clear things up. You can’t just keep downloading onto the municipality if it is no longer our responsibility.”

Shelley Barnaby, senior researcher at Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises, says the whale in Sandy Cove was probably floating at sea for quite some time-the skin is all sunburnt and the fin, flipper and tail are all badly decomposed.

She says it was definitely a baleen whale-meaning it sifted food from the water with brush-like plates in its mouth in place of teeth. Judging by the small size of the whale and its short skull she says it was probably a minke whale. Minkes are common here in the summer.

Barnaby’s not sure what caused the long gash along the length of its body but she says they do sometimes split open if enough gases build up inside the corpse.

novanewsnow.com

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