A giant humpback whale has been found dead off the coast of Long Island in the north east of the United States. It is believed that the cause of death of the humpback whale was a ship collision.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on the 1st (local time) that the humpback whale’s death was most likely caused by a ‘ship collision’.
The 12m long and 14.5t humpback whale, a 40-year-old man named Luna, has been monitored by oceanographers. The last sighting was in Nova Scotia, south-east Canada, in September last year.
However, on the morning of the 30th of last month, Luna was washed up dead at a beach park in Hempstead, mid-west Long Island. Hempstead Town official Don Calvin said, “In 20 years, this crew said they had never seen a whale this size.”
Afterwards, a team of 20 people, including a biologist, performed an autopsy and took tissue samples, with the final collection expected to take several months. However, experts so far believe that a ship collision is the most likely cause of death.
“Luna was a well-known whale among oceanographers,” oceanographer Cara Patino told local media.
Meanwhile, the humpback whale is a mammal of the baleen whale family, with a body length of 11 to 16 m and a weight of up to 40 tonnes. It lives mainly on krill (Antarctic shrimp) and small fish, and lives for 45 to 100 years.
Jang Ji-min, Hankyung.com guest reporter newsinfo@hankyung.com
