Federal officials are investigating after yet another humpback whale washed up dead on Haida Gwaii this weekend.
Residents discovered the humpback on a beach south of Cape Fife in Naikoon Provincial Park on Sunday.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) told Global News that staff had attended the site Tuesday to photograph and take measurements and samples of the whale.
It is conducting a necropsy, but said results would take two to three months to complete.
The DFO also issued a health and safety warning about the carcass, warning locals that several dogs have become ill due to eating meat from the decaying animal.
It also warned people to keep away and avoid handling any dead wildlife.
This is at least the third dead humpback to turn up in B.C. waters in recent months.
A dead humpback was spotted in the ocean in the area several weeks ago, but until the necropsy comes back, officials can’t say if it was the same animal, DFO said.
Humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean were nearly wiped out by the whaling industry before they were protected by the International Whaling Commission in 1966.
Rebounding populations in recent years have led the Committee on the Status of Endangered Species in Canada to downgrade their risk status from “threatened” to “special concern.”
Ship strikes and entanglement remain their greatest threats.
The DFO said several thousand of the creatures are believed to summer in the waters off B.C.’s coast, and that five to 10 humpback mortalities are typical every year.
It said while it is monitoring the situation, the number of deaths this year is within historical averages and does not yet present a concern.
Comments