Pilot whale washes ashore in Rockport, Massachusetts

December 19, 2012

By James Niedzinski Staff Writer

ROCKPORT — The shores of Long Beach are largely void of people this time of year, but a second dead whale has now washed up along the town’s shoreline.

A small pilot whale, approximately 10 to 15 feet, was reported to the Rockport Police Department at 9:17 on Tuesday morning, with police officials quickly notifying the New England Aquarium as well. A volunteer staff member of the aquarium was sent out Tuesday to photograph the whale.

The whale washed out to sea later in the afternoon, said Rockport Public Works Director Joe Parisi, who said it could easily wash back in on either the Rockport or Gloucester side of the beach.

The first response by the Rockport DPW was to let nature take its course, according to DPW employee Chuck Osmond.

“Right now we’re just going to wait and see,” he said while leaving the beach around 11 a.m.

Tuesday, the whale’s body shifted back and forth in the tide, making it almost seem alive.

The incident marks the second time in three months that a dead whale has washed onto Rockport’s beaches. A much larger fin whale washed up onto a beachfront on Penzance Road on Oct. 20 after being reported near Boston Harbor on Oct. 8.

The pilot whale may have also floated from the same area. Tony LaCasse, a spokesmen for the New England Aquarium, said a pilot whale carcass was reported near the town of Hull during the week of Thanksgiving.

Pilot whales often travel in pods, unlike larger fin whales, which are solitary, LaCasse said. Laura House, program director of the Whale Center in Gloucester, said the incident could be a sign of more washed up whales coming down the line.

LaCasse conceded that having two whale carcasses wash up within just a few months of each other was “unusually high.”

He said the problem is not seasonal, but the pilot whale’s cause of death may be due to a food shortage. Pilot whales usually are much farther offshore and may have been traveling closer to land in search of more food, he said.

Although pilot whales are sociable and travel in groups, when a whale is getting too old or ill, other whales send the dying one off into the ocean alone, LaCasse said. He noted that Rockport and Cape Ann in general seem to be a hot spot for whales to wash up ashore, ending their lives peacefully.

“We have had distressed whales in the area in the past,” he said. “Two or three years ago, we had a few different whales wash ashore in a period of five or six weeks.”

LaCasse said carcasses can roam the open water for four weeks or more, depending on the species of whale and the amount of blubber it has. Harbormasters often warn both recreational boaters and commercial fisherman of running into a whale carcass, as they can cause damage to vessel. According to House, only two percent of whale carcasses wash ashore; others simply sink to the bottom or float further out into the ocean.

LaCasse said that images show the whale is far too decomposed to do a necropsy; with smaller whales, he said, it is up to the landowner to best decide on how to remove the carcass. And, as of Tuesday, the “landowner” was the town of Rockport.

Town officials dealt with the previous dead whale – which measured some 54 feet — by having the state Division of Marine Fisheries remove the bones before the DPW buried the rest of the remains.

gloucestertimes.com

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