Hualien: A partially decomposed 15-meter whale carcass was found in a set-net fishery in Hualien's Chongde Bay on Wednesday, according to local officials.
According to Focus Taiwan, the Coast Guard was alerted to the presence of the dead whale by the fishery operator at approximately 9 a.m. A marine wildlife expert was quickly dispatched to the location, which is about 20 kilometers north of downtown Hualien. Officials from the Hualien Agricultural Bureau were also involved and managed to tow the carcass onto Chongde Beach, measuring it at 15.4 meters in length.
The expert on site indicated that the whale was likely a fin whale or an Omura's whale, also known as a dwarf fin whale, based on its appearance. The whale had apparently died before washing into the bay, as stated by the Ocean Conservation Administration. Both types of whales are baleen whales, easily recognizable by the baleen plates in their mouths used for filtering plankton from the water.
Initially, county government officials had considered using a crane truck to move the large carcass. However, an expert from the Taiwan Cetacean Society advised against this due to the whale's size and the bloody water seeping from it. Representatives from the Taiwan Cetacean Society are scheduled to return to the site on Thursday to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
The decision to leave the whale on the beach may have been wise, given past experiences. In 2004, a 17-meter sperm whale being transported through Tainan for an autopsy exploded due to gases from internal decay, causing a mess of rotten blood and organs on nearby structures and vehicles. The skeleton of that whale was later preserved and displayed at the National Cheng Kung University's Nanying Marine Conservation Education Center.