Giant sea creature’s body washes ashore in Massachusetts — for second time, experts say
A familiar 41-foot body was spotted strewn across the sand on the Marblehead, Massachusetts, shoreline.
“She’s (hump) back!” a local news outlet’s headline read hours after her May 14 sighting.
She was the same dead humpback whale that had washed ashore weeks ago, experts concluded.
According to Patch.com, officials had towed the same whale back out to the water in hopes of her decomposing at sea. But clearly, that didn’t happen.
“NOAA called. I was told that the whale that was already here at one point is now back,” animal control officer Scott Considine told NBC Boston. “Looks like it’s the same whale.”
From here, experts are hoping the tide will carry the whale back out to the ocean where she belongs, the outlet reported. If that doesn’t happen, however, officials will have to devise a more sophisticated plan to tow her back out – this time hopefully to somewhere where she’ll be less likely to land back on a beach.
Humpback whales are known by whale-watchers as some of the most dynamic and entertaining ocean animals. These massive creatures are beloved by boaters for their spirited jumping and surface athletics. They also sing songs that can be heard from 20 miles away, Nature reported.
This humpback’s cause of death remains unclear, but experts have cited an ongoing “unusual mortality event” at-play for large whales in the Atlantic.
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