Humpback whale photographed 40 years ago in Caribbean dies after beaching on Sable Island
CBC
WARNING: This story contains an image of a dead whale.
A humpback whale died in early November after beaching itself on Sable Island, about 200 kilometres off the coast of Nova Scotia, despite efforts by Parks Canada workers to try to save the animal.
The whale was identified while it was alive, based on a photograph taken by Parks Canada that showed a distinguishing mark on its tail. The whale had been previously sighted over 40 years ago.
"We were all in the vehicle out on a patrol going eastward along the South Beach and we came across the humpback whale," said Sarah Medill, operations coordinator for Sable Island national park reserve. "A humpback whale is about 25 tonnes and we knew that we don't have equipment or any ability to help in that kind of a situation."
Medill said they only have two Bobcat loaders which are too small to help.
"There's a number of reasons that we can find them beached to shore," said Tonya Wimmer, executive director for Marine Animal Response Society (MARS). "Sometimes it is purely an accident in the sense that maybe they took a left when they should have taken a right."
MARS, a Canadian charitable organization that focuses on marine animal conservation, received a phone call from Medill and her team to report the incident.
Wimmer and Medill said the team same several attempts to rescue the 12-metre mammal, but due to the harsh conditions and the animal's size they were unsuccessful.
"Logistics play a big role in this even for a whale of this size," Wimmer said. "To have an animal that big be sort of stranded, high and dry on a beach, it's really difficult to be able to put them back in the water.
"It's an unfortunate thing but sometimes you have to make the really difficult decision to let nature take its course."
When the team was documenting the incident, the whale lifted its tail exposing a distinguishing mark, something Wimmer says is 'like a fingerprint' to help identify the mammal.
After the photograph was taken, it was sent to Allied Whale at the College of the Atlantic in Maine and the Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts. It was determined the whale was at least 43 years old, which is not unusual, with some reaching the age of 80, Wimmer said.
"They were able to match this animal to an individual that was originally sighted in 1982 down on the Silver Bank, South Dominican Republic," Wimmer said.
"The last sighting of this animal was during the early 1990s," she said.
When the federal government tabled its 2025 budget last month, it included a proposal that tax fraud experts say is long overdue — if also a belated acknowledgement that the Canada Revenue Agency has been repeatedly duped into paying out untold millions in bogus tax refunds to scammers.
Talking with an AI chatbot can successfully convince people to change their votes and could affect the outcome of future elections, according to a new study.
While some are writing wishlists for Santa Claus, a group of Newfoundland and Labrador youth are writing their wishlist for the provincial government.
A horse owner near Stewiacke, N.S., says the current shortage of hay in the province is putting pressure on her financially.
Victoria Volkanova was remembering Jewish resilience and courage by celebrating Hanukkah on Sunday.
Winnipeggers are still digging out from this past week’s winter wallop, but the wait for roadside assistance is almost over, according to the provincial motoring association.
When long-time journalist Cornelia Naylor picked up the first copy of her newly printed community newspaper this week, it wasn’t something she had ever expected to do.
The province's police watchdog is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman in Toronto Sunday.
Toronto police say a collision involving several vehicles in the city's east-end left one driver in life-threatening condition Sunday.
A church service in Stratford, P.E.I., brought together Christmas traditions from across the globe on Sunday.
On an extremely cold day, many people would prefer to stay home, cozy up under a blanket, and put on the TV, radio, or a favourite podcast.
In an era of Ring doorbells and No Soliciting signs, breaking the evening silence of a suburban London street can sometimes feel like a radical act.
For years, oil tanker traffic has been prohibited off the waters of northern British Columbia in order to protect environmentally sensitive coastlines from disaster.