The 3.5-tonne female likely drowned after trying to return to the sea with the morning tide, said Jacqui Karbozopoulos, head of the Mammal Coordination Center of Northern France (CMNF).
Thierry Juniot, University of Liege, Belgium marine mammals According to his expert, it is a specimen of the northern duck-billed whale (Hyperodoon ampullatus) belonging to the family of beaked cetaceans. These animals live in the depths of the arctic seas.
The whale His carcass was washed back to the sandy beach with the afternoon tide after traveling about three kilometres, Karbozopoulos said, and he said the animal could have been lost at night, but still had enough energy to return to the sea before it died.
According to the French expert, the stranding of cetaceans is considered an unusual event, he has not seen anything like it for forty years.
The whale will be dissected on the spot, and the Natural History Museum in Paris wants to get its skeleton.
It’s not the first time
According to Junio, members of the same family of cetaceans have already washed up on the shores of Belgium and the Netherlands, which raises many questions. This phenomenon can be due to pollution, the emergence of new diseases, or marine activities that change the behavior of the animal.
According to the MTI report, a 9.53-meter female was a humpback in February whale His body was found on a beach in Pas de Cais, between Calais and Marc. And in Australia in September, about 200 bottlenose dolphins died when they were washed ashore by waves.
(Cover photo: A duckbill whale drifted ashore in northern France on November 7, 2022. Photo: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)
