Environment officials in Northern Ireland have removed the 43-foot body of a dead whale that was washed ashore on a local beach earlier this week.
The Department of the Environment (DOE), together with the National Trust and the coast guard, recovered the carcass of a sei whale that was beached near Portstewart in Londonderry County on Monday, Oct. 5.
Experts initially believed the 43-foot carcass belonged to a minke whale, a species of baleen whale typically found in the waters of Northern Ireland, but later examinations showed that the gigantic sea creature was an adult sei whale.
Peter Lynas, a local resident who first spotted the floating dead whale near his house on Monday morning, said he thought the carcass was an overturned boat with a red buoy at first, but it was in fact a whale with its tongue sticking right out.
Marine expert Joe Breen from the environment department said that they have had extraordinary sightings of marine mammals, including dolphins and whales, off the north coast in the past summer.
Breen recounted that they followed around 70 to 80 dolphins up and down the north coast last season. They also received reports of humpback whale sightings off of Rathlin and beluga whale sightings off of Dunseverick.
Members of the National Trust, which manages the beach where the whale found, tried to load the dead animal onto a trailer but had difficulties because of the massive size of the carcass.
Breen said that they tried to use two diggers to lift the 22-ton whale carcass but failed to load it on to a trailer. They then asked permission from a local road construction company to use its 40-foot rig together with the two smaller diggers to transfer the massive sea creature onto a low loader.
Scientific officer Tracy Platt from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) said that they were hoping to study the sei whale carcass as well as extract tissue samples that can be used in creating a DNA profile of whales endemic to the north Atlantic.
She added that they also do not want the public to get too close to the dead animal and retrieve samples themselves as these sea creatures could carry various diseases harmful to humans.
Platt said that the whale carcass would likely be incorporated into a local landfill system.
