Death 3-year-old killer whale “Clearly the animal was blown up.”

By SCOTT RASMUSSEN
Journal of the San Juans Editor
March 13, 2012 ·

With a body of evidence still under scrutiny, local biologists remain guarded about whether the recent death of a 3-year-old killer whale is the result of unnatural causes.

But some local killer whale experts are drawing their own conclusions.

“It didn’t die of disease or starvation,” Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research said of the young female killer whale, known as L112 at the center. “Clearly the animal was blown up.”

Scott Rasmussen Dr. Joe Gaydos of SeaDoc Society continues in the search for clues of a killer whale’s death by removing tissue surrounding the skull of L112, also known as Sooke, Tuesday, March 6, at the UW Friday Harbor Labs.

Balcomb, director of the San Juan Island-based

killer whale research center, contends that the signs of trauma on the body and on the head and, more importantly, among the tissues in the rear of the killer whale’s jaw are strikingly similar to the injuries that he witnessed in a group of stranded beaked whales several years ago in the Bahamas. He said those whales stranded themselves on a beach shortly after a military ship traveling in the same vicinity passed by with its sonar engaged.

“Basically it’s what happens when you blow up the head of a whale,” Balcomb said of L112 injuries.

The body of L112, also known as “Sooke” was found on a beach just north of Long Beach, Wash., on Feb. 11. Its body was battered, bloodied and bruised, and …

sanjuanjournal.com

Fair Use: Educational