{"id":30161,"date":"2016-06-02T02:23:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T09:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/necropsy-completed-on-whale-found-on-bow-of-cruise-ship\/"},"modified":"2016-06-02T02:23:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T09:23:43","slug":"necropsy-completed-on-whale-found-on-bow-of-cruise-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/necropsy-completed-on-whale-found-on-bow-of-cruise-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"Necropsy completed on whale found on bow of cruise ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE<\/strong> \u2014 A necropsy has been completed on a 50-foot fin whale discovered Sunday on the bow of a cruise ship entering an Alaska port.<\/p>\n

A cause of death for the endangered animal, however, was not immediately announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s under investigation,\u201d said Julie Speegle, spokeswoman for the fisheries section of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The whale was spotted just after 5 a.m. Sunday on the bulbous bow of the Zaandam, a Holland America Line cruise ship, as it prepared to dock in Seward. Spokeswoman Sally Andrews in an email said an officer preparing the ship for arrival just after 4:30 a.m. had not seen the whale.<\/p>\n

The company was not aware of whales in the area and has a program to avoid striking them if sighted. Ships can reduce speed or alter course, Andrews said.<\/p>\n

Fin whales feed on schooling fish and invertebrates. The average adult male fin whale is 70 feet long and 45 tons. The whale carried by the Zaandam was a juvenile male.<\/p>\n

The carcass was towed to a beach for the necropsy. A private Alaska veterinary pathologist working with NOAA Fisheries, Kathy Burek Huntington, was the lead pathologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whale was a very fresh, young fin whale, which gave us an amazing opportunity to conduct a full necropsy and obtain the full spectrum of samples,\u201d Huntington said in a statement provided by Speegle.<\/p>\n

Researchers took samples allowing testing for exposure to harmful algal blooms. Samples will allow a look at the whale\u2019s current and historical diet, genetics to determine stock, contaminants and pre-existing conditions. Ear plugs will allow a determination of age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese necropsies don\u2019t just find COD (cause of death), but help answer a host of questions about these endangered species,\u201d Huntington said.<\/p>\n

The whale was carried on the ship\u2019s bulbous bow, an underwater extension of the main bow that is designed to avoid making waves.<\/p>\n

NOAA Fisheries has three options for disposing of the carcass, Speegle said. It would be cost-prohibitive to tow it to open water. The agency could \u201clet nature take its course\u201d and leave the carcass to scavengers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also consideration, Speegle said, for burying the carcass on the beach and digging up the bones later for re-articulation and display.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 A necropsy has been completed on a 50-foot fin whale discovered Sunday on the bow of a cruise ship entering an Alaska port. A cause of death for the endangered animal, however, was not immediately announced. \u201cIt\u2019s under investigation,\u201d said Julie Speegle, spokeswoman for the fisheries section of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}