HANALEI — One of the world’s smallest whales, a pygmy sperm whale, died this past weekend after repeated attempts to beach itself at Miloli’i along the Na Pali coast. Arrangements were made to have the ten-foot long whale brought to
HANALEI — One of the world’s smallest whales, a pygmy sperm whale, died this
past weekend after repeated attempts to beach itself at Miloli’i along the Na
Pali coast.
Arrangements were made to have the ten-foot long whale brought
to Hanalei, and it was later hauled to a remote site for study and
burial.
People who observed the stranding told State Aquatic Biologist Don
Heacock the whale seemed obviously disoriented and determined to swim over the
shallow reef towards the shore.
Heacock recalled the stranding of a pilot
whale at Haena a few years ago.
“When they beach themselves, they’re very
adamant about it. We swam it out, even got a zodiac to pull it offshore, but at
every instance it would swim full speed upon the reef and cut itself all
up.
“It’s one way for a dying animal to separate itself from the rest of
the pod. Perhaps by going somewhere to die, you’re taking potential predators
away. Elephants do the same thing, they go away from the herd to die.”
Heacock said that helping such an animal in distress is not illegal, under good
samaritan laws. “Let’s say you saw a hawksbill turtle all tangled in a bunch of
fishing net and drowning. You have the right to cut it free because you’re
trying to help it.”
According to Kenneth Balcomb, author of “The Whales of
Hawai’i,” “along the East Coast of the United States, between New York and
Florida, dozens of these little whales wash ashore each year, many showing
evidence of having been hit by ships.”
Reliable observers have noted that
pygmy sperm whales sometimes display curiosity towards passing ships, and
Balcomb speculates that “perhaps their curiosity gets the best of them and they
get too close to vessels under way.” In the recent stranding, scratch marks
could be seen on the whale, probably from its encounter with the reef, but,
according to Heacock, “all tissues and organs looked absolutely healthy.” There
was no indication of collision with a boat or its propellers.
Dr. Thierry
Work, head pathologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, performed a
necropsy and took numerous tissue samples back to Honolulu for microscopic
analysis. Results have not yet been released.
Apparently, while the dead
whale lay on the beach Sunday night before being hauled off Monday afternoon,
someone removed its lower jaw.
Heacock said it is illegal for anyone to
possess any part of a marine mammal, even bones or teeth from a dead animal.
whether it’s endangered or not.
“We’d like to get the jaw back,” said
Heacock. Someday someone might want to make a mount of a complete skeleton of
this whale, but not without its jaw.”
The pygmy whale’s larger cousin, the
sperm whale, is an endangered species with large teeth highly valued by
scrimshaw carvers.
“The teeth of the pygmy whale are so small you can’t do
anything with them anyway. A German shepherd has bigger teeth,” said Heacock.
However, he admitted that perhaps someone might have wanted them for use in a
necklace or bracelet.
“The concept behind this law is to prevent the
creation of a black market.
“That’s the reason you can’t keep any part of
an endangered or protected species.
“Let’s say someone makes a beautiful
necklace out of a hawksbill turtle shell that was found dead. Someone else sees
it and says they’re willing to pay any price to get one. It might create the
incentive to take a living animal.
“You’ve not only created a black market,
but the potential for someone to kill a protected species. You have to have a
law that you cannot have any part of one in your possession.
“That’s why,
when I do a necropsy on a sea turtle, I have the tractor operator run over the
shell before the animal is buried. You couldn’t make a comb even if you wanted
to. Someone might say that looks like the waste of a resource, but to me it is
protection of a resource.”
Some sperm whales that have washed ashore on
Kaua’i over the past two decades have had their lower jaws stolen.
“People
could face a ten thousand dollar fine for this,” said Heacock.
Closest
relative to the pygmy sperm whale is the dwarf sperm whale, which reaches about
8-9 feet in length as opposed to 12 feet for the pygmy.
They look quite
similar, although the dwarf sperm whale has a more upright, dolphin-like dorsal
fin. The pygmy sperm whale’s dorsal fin is “a small nubbin,” curved back
towards the tail.
The head profile of both whales is somewhat reminiscent
of a shark. A federal government book on whales states that “stranded pygmy and
dwarf sperm whales are not likely to be confused with any other cetaceans, but
their narrow, underslung jaw and blunt head could result in their casual
dismissal by some beach walkers as stranded sharks.”
The pygmy whale
varies from dark steel gray to bluish gray on the back, and lighter gray on the
belly. According to the government whale book, “a conspicuous feature is the
white, crescent-shaped bracket mark on each side of the head.
“Because of
it’s location behind the eye and ear, this strange mark superficially
resembles a fish’s gill slit and is sometimes called a false gill.”
Heacock said another interesting feature was noted during the
necropsy.
“What blew me away was the sonar organ in the head. It’s about
the size of an orange and looks like mouth of a lamprey, highly vascularized
with all these concentric rings, really fibrous. It’s one of the strangest
anatomical structures that I’ve ever seen.”
Little is known about the
history, status, and social life of both the pygmy and dwarf sperm whales.
They are rarely seen or recognized at sea, although when seen they are in
small pods of three to six individuals. Most strandings are of single whales,
and occasionally females with calves.
Margaret Dupree, Marine Mammal
Stranding Coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said that
“sometimes the young ones become separated from their mothers. That’s what
apparently happened with the melon-headed whale now at Sea Life Park. That’s
one of the reasons why it’s so important for vessels to keep away from whales.”
