An over 11-metre-long Bryde’s whale was washed ashore on Friday at the Juhu beach, one of the popular tourist destinations of Mumbai.
The dead whale was spotted in the early hours on Friday and the locals informed the Forest department. From morning, a huge crowd assembled at the beach to see the whale, which probably had died in the high seas, 24 to 36 hours ago. For morning joggers, spotting the dead whale came as a surprise.
Officials of the Forest department, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation and Mumbai Police immediately reached the spot and cordoned off the area. In the evening, the whale was lifted through a crane and buried away around a few km away.
“We measured it and we found it to be 11.3 metres long, a little more than 37 feet,” Assistant Conservator of Forests Makrand B Ghodke told Deccan Herald.
In June 2015, during the monsoon, a 42-foot-long blue whale was washed ashore at the Revdanda coast, near Alibaug, the headquarters of the neighbouring Raigad district of the coastal Konkan belt.
It may be recalled, at least 45 small whales — short-finned pilot whales, part of the lot which washed ashore in Tiruchendur in Tamil Nadu had died when more than 100 whales were found on the 16 km stretch from Alanthalai to Kallamozhi coastal hamlets. It appears that they had drifted from their normal course.
