The gray whale, observed on Friday, off Bormes-les-Mimosas – A. Gannier
- Strayed far from the North Pacific, its natural habitat, a gray whale was observed for the first time along the coasts of the French Mediterranean, according to the National Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
- Scientists are worried because the animal is visibly emaciated.
Observed first in Antibes then in Mandelieu-La Napoule Thursday, in the Alpes-Maritimes, it was then seen and photographed in the port of Bormes-les-Mimosas, from where it was taken further offshore on Friday. Strayed far from the North Pacific, its natural habitat, a gray whale was observed for the first time along the coasts of the French Mediterranean, according to the National Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
“Our colleagues from the Carry-le Rouet Marine Park very likely crossed paths again on Sunday,” said Monday to 20 minutes the veterinarian Adrien Gannier, member of this network which continues to follow its progress, worried that the visibly emaciated animal will experience a fatal outcome. This new observation would in any case be good news because “it would mean that it has passed Marseille and that it is today in the Gulf of Lion”. An area where the animal might more find the small invertebrates it usually feeds on on the other side of the earth.
Lost in the Beaufort Sea
According to scientists who have already crossed his path, the specimen in question is a calf of about fifteen months and measuring between 7.5 m and 8 m which had already been seen in Morocco in early March and in Italy in recent weeks. “And this is a first for our French coasts. A gray whale had already been observed in 2010 in the Mediterranean, but rather on the side of Israel and Spain ”, further details Adrien Gannier.
Still according to the specialist, also a member of the Cetacean Research Group (Greek), “it is possible that this whale, born in California, was lost in the Beaufort Sea during its first feeding season and that instead of back down towards the Pacific, it borrowed the Atlantic before finding itself trapped in the Mediterranean ”.
The OFB hopes to be able to take a direct debit
A critical situation that worries and also interests the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB). “This individual was first observed off Barcelona and then along the Italian coast without having been able to be sampled by experts authorized to know its exact origin,” indicates the organization. There is an important stake in genetically identifying this extremely rare whale, which could come from two distinct groups of gray whales of the North Pacific, that of the west and that of the east ”.
The OFB calls “any person observing the animal to note its position by GPS and to contact as soon as possible” a permanence at 06.87.91.03.32 “so that experts can intervene”. And there is an emergency according to the public establishment, which fears that the animal, “dying”, “may sink without allowing to have this unique opportunity for science to study it”.
For his part, Adrien Gannier hopes that the calf will continue its journey until it follows the Spanish coast before coming out of the Mediterranean to Gibraltar and then up the Atlantic.