TRUE'S OR SOWERBY'S BEAKED WHALE? COURTESY OF THE IRISH WHALE AND DOLPHIN GROUP
June 2013. Dermot Breen, conservation ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service contacted the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group with details and photos of a beaked whale that had stranded at Aillebrack, near Ballyconneely in County Galway. It is a 5m long female and the gender makes species identification tricky as the two teeth in beaked whales only fully erupt in adult males. IWDG say that their best guess at the moment is that it is either a True's or Sowerby's beaked whale.
Two more recent Beaked whale strandings
On 12th May 2013 an adult female beaked whale live stranded and died at Five Fingers Strand, Malin, Co. Donegal and on 14th May a juvenile beaked whale, which had also live stranded, was found at Trawbreaga Bay, Malin. Both of these are thought to have been True's beaked whales (awaiting confirmation from DNA test) and were removed to Athlone for post mortem. This initial double stranding could be seen as rare but not unusual in that it is reasonable to assume that the calf was likely to have been reliant on the female.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!