A partially decomposed 15m whale carcass was yesterday found in a set-net fishery in Hualien's Chongde Bay (崇德海灘), local officials said.
The Coast Guard Administration said that it was notified of the dead whale by the fishery operator at about 9am, and promptly dispatched a marine wildlife expert to the site, about 20km north of downtown Hualien.
Officials from the Hualien County Government's Agriculture Bureau, who were also sent out to help, towed the carcass onto Chongde Beach, where they measured its length at 15.4m.
Photo courtesy of the Hualien County Government
Based on its appearance, the whale was likely either a fin whale or an Omura's whale, also known as a dwarf fin whale, the expert said.
Both species are baleen whales, which are identifiable by the baleen plate or "whalebone" in their mouth that they use to sieve plankton from the water.
The whale had died some time before it washed into the bay, the Ocean Conservation Administration said.
While county government officials originally wanted to use a crane truck to move the creature, an expert from the Taiwan Cetacean Society recommended leaving it on the beach, due to its large size and the bloody water dripping from the carcass.
Representatives from the society planned to return to the site today to perform an autopsy on the whale and determine its cause of death.
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