whale
A 28 feet long dead whale was washed ashore on the remote rocky coast of Aagari village of Dapoli taluka in Ratnagiri district. The dead whale was spotted on Wednesday night, said N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forests, in charge of marine bio-diversity.

The whale species is yet to be confirmed.

This is the third incident this year when whale have been washed ashore. While the whale at Juhu too was dead and the body washed ashore, at Dapoli, a blue whale that had come close to the shores, was directed back into the sea by local forest officials and villagers. At Juhu the body was buried in the sand.

Vasudevan said the site where the dead whale was found is rocky and difficult to reach. "We have collected tissues to ascertain the cause of the death but will not be able to bury it,'' he said. He said there was also no expertise to conduct a post-mortem.

"The body was highly disintegrated which indicates that it had died in the sea," he said.