Baleen whale carcass at beach!

A 69-foot Baleen whale washed ashore at the Clifton beach early Tuesday, startling picnickers and Cetacean experts. A large number of people, including women and children, gathered at the beach to get a look at the enormous whale. Cetacean experts rushed to the site and started measuring the beast’s body volume and took meat samples for a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test to ascertain the possible reasons behind the death of this significant whale species. This is the sixteenth whale to be found dead on the coastal belt of Sindh and Balochistan since 2005.
Unfortunately, despite taking a number of samples of dead whales and sending them to a London-based laboratory, officials of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF)-Pakistan’s Cetacean Conservation Project (CCP) never ascertained the actual causes of the death of the whales and dolphins found along the coastal belt. The decomposed whale that washed ashore on Tuesday was discovered near a fast food restaurant. According to the picnickers, the whale’s body was found in a rotten condition and the pungent odour of its decaying carcass could be sensed from afar.
“Perhaps it died in the open sea,” said former CCP project officer Dr Babar Hussain. “The condition of the carcass reveals that it is around two weeks old and it washed ashore today (Tuesday).” Hussain said his team has taken the whale’s DNA sample and also measured its body volume. The team is planning to transfer the beast’s skeleton to the WWF’s Wetland Centre in Kakapir village, Hawkesbay to educate visitors and students about whales, he added.
He said the beast’s flesh would decompose in a month and then the WWF team would transport the skeleton from the beach.
He also said tests would help ascertain the cause of death, but he wondered if the whale was attacked by a pygmy killer whale, which is about eight feet long and has sharp teeth to attack with.
However, International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Tahir Qureshi said the whale had died because of increasing sea pollution and pouring of chemicals, particularly nuclear waste.
“I have found several injured whales in the pocket between Astola Island in Sindh and Jiwani in Balochistan injured because the Maritime Security Agency has allowed ships to come within 12 nautical miles of the coast, whereas internationally, a buffer zone of 30 nautical miles is kept free of ships so that different species of fish may live without any threat,” said Qureshi.