KEKAHA — A humpback calf washed ashore Monday afternoon on a beach in Kekaha. The approximately 15-foot-long whale carcass was visibly wounded, but the cause of death has not yet been determined. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will send
KEKAHA — A humpback calf washed ashore Monday afternoon on a beach in Kekaha.
The approximately 15-foot-long whale carcass was visibly wounded, but the cause of death has not yet been determined.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will send a team today, NOAA spokeswoman Wende Goo said.
The county Ocean Safety Bureau has been assisting the Coast Guard and NOAA in their efforts since the whale carcass was spotted at around 10 a.m. Monday and will continue to provide support as needed, county spokeswoman Mary Daubert said.
A tour boat captain reported a dead whale in the vicinity of Kokole Point in Kekaha at about 8:45 a.m. Monday.
At around 11 a.m., water safety officers from the Kekaha lifeguard tower had confirmed the sighting. They spotted the reported whale slowly drifting some 300 yards off the point.
Alan Yamagata, a water safety officer at the Kekaha tower, responded using the tower’s all-terrain vehicle.
“I couldn’t really tell if the whale was dead since there were other whales in the area,” Yamagata said.
Tom Clements, the public information officer at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Mana, said Kokole Point is at the border of the base and Kekaha.
He said the base is reacting to the reports and will remain on standby as NOAA checks into it.
Around noon, Yamagata said there was a helicopter circling the area where the whale carcass was floating.
“He did a couple of passes, then came down low and hovered for a while,” Yamagata said. “That’s when we realized the wind had switched and the whale was almost directly in front of the tower, about 200 yards out.”
Kaua‘i Ocean Safety Bureau supervisor Gerald Hurd responded to the situation on a Jet Ski from Lihu‘e. Shortly after 2 p.m., Yamagata and Hurd got a closer look at the carcass out in the water.
“Earlier, an off-duty lifeguard saw the carcass from the tower and suspected it might not be a humpback whale,” Yamagata said. “But when we got close, it was definitely a humpback whale. What made it confusing was the tail that people were mistaking for a dorsal fin.”
Yamagata said the whale was lying on its side, the water was clear to about 40 feet and there were no sharks sighted.
He noted a wound on the underside of the whale toward the tail and wasn’t sure if that contributed to the whale’s death.
There have been no reported links to the recent fish kill on Ni‘ihau. A dead humpback calf reportedly washed ashore there early last week.
The cause of that incident remains under investigation.
