On the morning of June 27, a 7.6-meter (25-foot) blue whale calf washed ashore on a busy beach in Mumbai, India’s financial capital and the capital of Maharashtra state. Whale strandings are rare along the Maharashtra coast, so Mongabay spoke with experts to find out what happened next.
“Each stranding incident is a totally unexpected event,” N. Vasudevan, former head of Maharashtra government’s Mangrove Cell, an administrative unit that manages coastal ecosystems, told Mongabay. “You can prepare for years, but then it may not happen for years. And one fine morning, it is there on the beach.”
According to the Mangrove Foundation, a registered society established by the Maharashtra government, only six of the 109 recorded stranding incidents in 2020-21 involved whales.
Under national guidelines, the first step in any stranding involving a protected species, such as the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), is alerting the local stranding network, whose coordinator notifies the forest department, according to Shaunak Modi, director of the Coastal Conservation Foundation, which is also part of the Mumbai Stranding Response Network.
Modi said that on June 27, a lifeguard notified him about the whale calf around 9 a.m. By the time he reached the site in the Bandra coastline 30 minutes later, the young cetacean had suffered severe injuries from crashing against exposed rocks. Ultimately, police and fire department authorities at the site confirmed it had died.
Fishers and local people told Modi they had first spotted the stranded whale around 6 a.m. First responders, primarily local fishers and lifeguards, receive specialized training to inform the network immediately of these emergencies, he said.
But what happens to the dead whale? Modi said legal and practical realities clash under national law.
The blue whale is a Schedule 1 species, meaning authorities give it the highest-level protection in India. “As per the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, if any Schedule 1 species dies, it needs to be cremated,” Modi said. But the law was made with terrestrial animals in mind, he added.
“If you try to burn a whale, I can assure you it will keep burning for days, if not weeks, because it has that much oil in it. So then instead of cremating a marine mammal, they’re buried.”
The calf was buried in a Mumbai beach.
Beforehand, veterinarians collected tissue samples and conducted a necropsy under forest department supervision.
“The necropsy report is still not ready, but what we know is that it was a calf,” Modi said. “Blue whale calves stay with their mother for up to seven or eight years and are entirely dependent on her for food during the first few years. We assume it may have been separated from its mother, which caused its condition.”
Vasudevan said there are systematic hurdles in knowing the cause of death. “The experts who conduct necropsy are nonexistent in our country.”
Banner image: Stranded whale calf in Mumbai. Image courtesy of Shaunak Modi.
