NEWCASTLE, Australia, Oct. 16 (UPI) —
A medium-sized beaked whale, which normally sticks to the deep sea, made a rare appearance this week. The 13-foot specimen — the species of which is not yet identified — was discovered dead on Australia’s Redhead Beach.
National Parks and Wildlife Service officials arrived at the scene to collect samples for testing before the whale was taken to a local landfill and buried. The samples will offer scientists the opportunity to study a whale rarely observed.
The whale had to be removed from the beach for safety precautions.
"Sometimes if its a remote location it’s perfectly reasonable to leave it where it is but where there is a potential concern they do need to be disposed of appropriately and sometimes burying and sometimes relocating it to landfill is another option," National Parks spokesman Lawrence Orel told Australia’s ABC News. "That depends on a whole range of factors, not least the size of the animal involved."
The samples collected by state scientists included the whale’s jaw, which will be X-rayed. The jaw bone will be helpful in identifying the whale’s exact species. Some species of beaked whales have been found to dive to depths of nearly 1,000 feet — a mammalian record — and stay underwater for more than two hours.
Like most beached whales, this beaked specimen didn’t get lost; it was likely sick, injured or old. Regardless of why it came to be beached, such occurrences are vital to understanding deepwater species.
"They’re sort of an oceanic species and much of the information that we know about them even today has come from stranded individuals like we’ve seen like this one at Redhead," said Orel.
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