Cleanup Continues for N.C. Beached Whales
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The Associated Press
Sunday, January 16, 2005; 7:53 PM
NAGS HEAD, N.C. - Scientists and National Park Service workers were working Sunday to collect samples and clean up whale carcasses after 33 of the marine mammals beached themselves between Buxton and Corolla. Seventeen died, including five that were euthanized because they were suffering.
Dozens of whales beached themselves early Saturday along a five-mile stretch of coastline near Oregon Inlet, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
A single minke whale was found dead in Corolla, the Virginian-Pilot reported. Two more whales turned up Sunday morning near Buxton - one already dead, and one so sick that it also had to be euthanized, NOAA Fisheries biologist Barbie Byrd said.
"We're hoping that this is all of them," she said.
Byrd said scientists with state and local governments and with universities in the region will take "any kind of sample you can think of" from the whales' remains, including skulls, stomachs, blood, urine and tissues.
Byrd said teams hoped to finish retrieving samples and burying what's left of the whales by Sunday or Monday evening, depending on the tides.
The samples will be used to see whether individual animals were ill and for a variety of research, including investigations into why healthy whales beach themselves and studies of migration patterns.
"We're going to look for everything we can possibly think of," Byrd said.
The whales were a mix of juvenile and adult pilot whales. Neither pilot whales nor minke whales are endangered or threatened species.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14188-2005Jan16.htmlWHY? Perhaps Norfolk Naval Base might have an idea.
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