A dead humpback whale that had been seen floating in northeastern Sitka Sound is probably the same one that washed ashore a few miles away in May, a marine mammal expert said July 12.
Lauren Wild, applied fisheries assistant professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, ran her skiff up into the southern end of Nakwasina Sound on July 12 to investigate the carcass. The location is a well-traveled waterway near Olga Strait and Dog Point, Sitka’s portal to the Inside Passage.
Wild said the juvenile male humpback had undergone significant decomposition.
“We found the whale, and it’s definitely pretty far gone — we’d call it ‘advanced decomposition’ on our data sheets,” Wild said. “I was able to get a piece of skin that was still on the whale … and I’m hoping I can send it to the NOAA Stranding Network team in Juneau and they can compare to the skin we collected off the May whale and see if it matches.”
The size, sex and state of decomposition indicate it’s likely the same carcass found beached on a small island near Gagaran Island in May, Wild said
Dead whales usually are left to decompose and feed scavenging animals, and Wild said that’s probably the proper course of action in this case.
“We’ll get the skin to Juneau and wait for the genetic work to be done. In terms of what to do with the carcass, usually if a whale is that decomposed we’ll just leave it. However, I need to chat with the NOAA folks about what they want me to do because it’s right along a main ‘highway’ with lots of boat traffic so lots of people are seeing it,” she said.
Wild is the Sitka volunteer coordinator for NOAA’s Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
For now, the whale is beached near Dog Point, at the western end of the Lisianski Peninsula, but Wild said a high tide could refloat it.
Wild urged people not to approach or touch the carcass. “We’ll now let nature do its thing, and if the public can help let nature do its thing by not disturbing it, that would be great,” she said.
The whale carcass Wild investigated in May was likely killed by orcas.
“There was a lot of damage to the head. … Killer whales kill gray whales or humpback whales in this area. They eat the tongue, that’s kind of the first thing they go for a lot of time. When that whale was first reported back in mid-May, there was a lot of blood around the head area and the rest of the body seemed fairly intact,” she said. “Transient killer whales and families of killer whales had been seen in Sitka Sound in the same area the day before and the day after. All of those signs pointed to possible killer whale predation for that whale.”
May’s whale investigation was cut short by a brown bear sow and two cubs feeding on the carcass.
This month, Wild received information that the carcass was slowly floating northeast, past Middle Island and toward Nakwasina.
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