A beaked whale 7.60 m long was discovered stranded on Monday morning on the beach of Sangatte, in Pas-de-Calais. The specialists hoped that she could leave with the rising tide, according to the Northern Mammalogical Coordination of France (CMNF).
The cetacean, a female “carrying abnormal stigmata”, “probably stranded by disorientation”, told AFP Jacky Karpouzopoulos, president of the CMNF. In the middle of the morning, he hoped that the animal, “very lively”, could leave with the rising tide, while expressing fears that it could also die drowned.
The stranding of this specimen of a boreal species, “which lives near the Arctic coasts”, is “exceptional, in forty years of activity I had never seen this”, he added. “It is not possible to move her” to help her get back to the sea, he explained.
The stranding of this specimen of a boreal species, “which lives near the Arctic coasts”, is “exceptional, in 40 years of activity I had never seen this”, he added. “It is not possible to move her” to help her get back to the sea, he explained.
The cetacean has a bleeding wound on the head, noted an AFP journalist on the spot. “These are superficial injuries, caused by the shock on the breakers”, and not the cause of its grounding, according to the mayor of the town, Guy Allemand.
If he were to succumb, the animal, stranded, according to him, during the previous tide, in the night, should be autopsied on the spot at the beginning of the afternoon, before the intervention of a rendering team, he told AFP.
In February, a 9.53 m female humpback whale was found dead, stranded, on a beach in Pas-de-Calais, between Calais and Marck, a phenomenon there too “exceptional” according to Mr. Karpouzopoulos .