No pattern seen in whale deaths

CAPE ELIZABETH — For the second time in three weeks, a dead Minke whale has washed ashore in the area.

According to Linda Doughty, executive director of Portland-based Marine Mammals of Maine, the whale found Sunday on Pine Point Beach in Scarborough is not the same one that was discovered May 17 on rocks near Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth.

Although Doughty estimated both “juvenile-to-adult” carcasses to weigh about 8,000 pounds, the Cape Elizabeth whale measured 27 feet long, while the one is Scarborough dressed out at “just under 25 feet.” Fully grown Minke whales can approach 33 feet long, said Doughty on Monday.

Because the Cape Elizabeth whale was “difficult to access” on the rocks, it was towed “about 10 or 12 miles out to sea,” said Doughty. That, and the coincidence of two beachings within a month, prompted some, including Scarborough Fire Chief Michael Thurlow, to say the two whales were one and the same. Thurlow’s theory was bolstered by the fact that by Monday a storm that brought record rainfall to the area had washed the whale off Pine Point Beach, carrying it to Old Orchard, where public works crews buried it in an undisclosed location.

“People try to connect the dots, but there’s really no pattern,” said Doughty. “We can go a whole year without a single such incident and then have several all at once. It’s really not all that unusual. High tide and winds will bring in all kinds of things that are floating around out there.”

Doughty estimated that both animals died at sea “several weeks” before washing ashore. Although both bodies were “badly decomposed” when examined by Doughty and her crew, she said both showed “no external, visual sign of anything that might have led to any cause of death.”

Because a necropsy was not performed on either whale, it is impossible to tell what environmental or health factors might have contributed to their deaths, said Doughty.

While the whale that landed in Scarborourgh and Old Orchard Beach was not the Cape Elizabeth Minke, that whale carcass was spotted again last week. Doughty said it came ashore a second time “further south,” although she declined to say exactly where. “By that time, there was not much left of it,” she said.

Under federal law the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is responsible for the protection and support of stranded sea life. In 1992, it created the Northeast Regional Office Marine Mammal Program to oversee response efforts from Maine to Virginia. On May 4, NOAA signed an agreement with Marine Mammals of Maine to have that new organization take the lead on reports of stranded and dead seals, dolphins, porpoises and whales found between Kittery and Rockland.