Finding sea turtle nests has been quite slow these past few weeks, but it was a very big week for beach walkers on Thursday morning. Unfortunatly, I had to drop off a car for maintenance that morning, so I did not walk the beach early in the morning as I normally would do. However, one of my condo neighbors called me to ask if I was on the beach, and if not, would I please take some photos of a dead whale that had been beached directly across from our building. I came back to the island and immediately parked in the public park across from our building. When I got to the top of the dune line I saw a very large dead whale laying on the beach at what was then low tide (see photos). After taking some photos, I asked the EAI field biologist who had found and "staked off" the area around the whale some questions about the whale. He didn't know the variety of whale that we were viewing, but thought that it had died of causes unknown - even though there were what appeared to be several large "bite marks" out of the whale's mid-section and tail. He said that sharks probably took those bites after the whale had died of other causes. He had measured the whale to be about 14 feet long, probably weighing from "1,200 to 1,400 pounds". He had called in his early morning find to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission after staking out the area around the carcass with bright orange tape usually used to stake out the sea turtle nests.
Later in the day, several organizations, including Harbor Branch of Fort Pierce, and Hubbs-SeaWorld Institute of Melbourne Beach were on site as a crew with a front-end loader pulled the whale up on the beach, then picked it up and traveled to the highway with it cradled in the front claw where it was deposited it in a large truck bed. The Fort Pierce Treasure Coast Newspaper on Friday reported (along with a photo of the dead whale) that "Blair Mase, marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA's southeast region in St. Petersburg, said that the necropsy will 'help establish some baseline information about beaked whales. We know so little about them because they're such an evasive, deep-water species'", he said. Later on in the day, the same neighbor that had alerted me to the whale's beaching received some additional information from a friend who had done some research on the beaked whale and found that they were, indeed, very rare. Here's a portion of that e-mail to my neighbor:
1. There are 23 different types of 'beaked' whales, but only four of them have been observed alive. The other 19 varieties are known only from found partial remains or fossils.
2. Of the 23 varieties, they range in adult growth from the full grown small variety being 13 feet up to the giant of the species with a length of 43 feet.
3. These whales have been around for many thousands of years.
4. Fossils have been found in South Africa.
5. Each variety has a different name.
6. Beaked whales have a life span that averages 25 - 40 years.
7. They primarily live in very deep waters off the continental shelf. They are very deep diving and feeding whales. They eat mostly squid and crustaceans by sucking in their prey and swallowing it whole.
Unfortunately, the EAI biologist also said that he had found a dead Loggerhead adult turtle further south on the beach and had buried it. It appears that conditions were very tough for some of our sea-going friends this past week, so we'll hope for better luck and more sea turtle nests next week!
