French animal experts said on Sunday they were preparing to conduct an autopsy on a 19-metre-long whale that died after getting stranded at the northern port of Calais.

The fin whale, weighing around 15 tonnes, apparently beached itself after getting injured, a rare phenomenon in the area.

"It is a female, about 30 years old, who ran aground on Saturday," Jacky Karpouzopoulos of the CMNF animal protection group told AFP.

"She was sick but she reached the port of Calais still alive, then she went too close to the rocks and she ran aground."

Karpouzopoulos said the whale would be pulled to an area where they could carry out an autopsy on Tuesday.

Fin whales, the second-biggest mammal species in the world after the blue whale, are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Several species of whale populate the waters around France.

Earlier this year, a humpback whale was discovered washed up on a beach in France's Mediterranean south.

Related Links
Follow the Whaling Debate

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Whales more important ecosystems engineers than previously thought
Stanford CA (SPX) Nov 04, 2021
From 1910 to 1970, humans killed an estimated 1.5 million baleen whales in the frigid water encircling Antarctica. They were hunted for their blubber, baleen - the filtering fringe they have in place of teeth - and meat. One might assume that from the perspective of krill - the tiny shrimp-like creatures the whales feast on - this would be a boon. But new research published Nov. 4 in Nature from a collaboration led by Stanford University's Goldbogen Lab suggests the opposite: that the decline of baleen ... read more