© MERRA dead whale washed ashore at Port Mahon over the weekend. Its state of decomposition has made identification difficult thus far, but the MERR Institute’s best guess is that it’s a juvenile humpback whale.
A dead whale was spotted in the water just off the coast at Port Mahon on Sunday night.
"It was reported to us on Sunday night, but when we talked to locals it seems that it may have washed up there a few days before," said Suzanne Thurman, director of the Marine Education, Research & Rehabilitation (MERR) Institute.
Due to the whale's late stage of decomposition, identifying it accurately was tricky, said Ms. Thurman. The MERR Institute's best guess is that the animal is a juvenile humpback whale, originally about 30-feet long or more.
"It's certainly a baleen whale from what we can see, probably a humpback, but there weren't a lot of identifying marks left," said Ms. Thurman. "The tissue was so degraded and much of it has been scavenged — it was kind of like a pile of mush."
MERR is a non-profit "stranding" response and rehabilitation organization dedicated to the conservation of marine mammals and sea turtles.
The organization is authorized by National Marine Fisheries Service and the State of Delaware to be the official "stranding" respondents for the marine mammals and sea turtles of Delaware.
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