PETERSBURG, Alaska (AP) — Federal marine mammal officials say it’s too soon to determine the cause of death for a female humpback whale found near Kake earlier this month.
The whale was first reported around Sept. 1 in Keku Strait near Kake, KFSK reported.
Kate Savage, a marine mammal specialist with the NOAA Fisheries protected resources division in Juneau, said the dead whale was later floated to an island outside Kake for a necropsy.
The cause of death was immediately evident, but injuries appear similar to those of humpbacks that have collided with boats.
“You know it’s really tough to come up with a definitive cause of death but it seemed like there’s probably, it’s very probable there’s traumatic injury involved,’’ she said. “It possibly was a ship strike but you know it’ll, we send samples off and we’ll kinda wait til everything comes back before we come up with a cause of death and even then it wouldn’t be definitive.’’
Savage says the whale was not pregnant.
The number of humpbacks in Southeast is rising about 7 percent a year. The number of reported collisions between the protected marine mammals and boats is increasing at about the same rate.
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