The 40-foot-long humpback whale that was found dead off Cape Elizabeth this week appears to have spent its last couple weeks near Maine.
Federal officials still have not released any findings from an ongoing necropsy of the female whale, which had fishing gear wrapped around its tail when it was hauled to Portland on Thursday and removed from the water.
But the whale, which was known to researchers as “Chunk,” was seen about two weeks ago off of Mount Desert Island, according to Lindsey Jones, the photo-ID director for Allied Whale, a marine mammal laboratory based at College of the Atlantic. Jones said that a researcher from Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. spotted Chunk during a cruise on May 25.
“It’s always hard to learn that an animal you know and have seen before has passed away, especially under painful circumstances like an entanglement,” Jones said.
While Allied Whale does respond to whale strandings, it only does so as far south as Rockland. It’s not involved with the necropsy of the whale found this week, and Jones was not able to discuss the circumstances of its death.
On Wednesday, that whale was first reported to authorities as alive and wrapped in a net off of Cape Elizabeth, but it had died by the time Maine Marine Patrol reached it, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Marine Patrol then towed it to shore on Thursday, and it was loaded onto an excavation trailer and taken to an inland location for its necropsy and disposal.
Marine Mammals of Maine is overseeing the necropsy.
In the northern Atlantic Ocean, humpback whales are one of three large whale species that have had an unusual number of deaths, injuries and illnesses in recent years. The other two are minkes and North Atlantic right whales.
The situation is especially dire for the right whales, which are endangered and estimated to have fewer than 70 reproductively active females left out of a remaining population of 360, according to NOAA.
Most of those deaths are caused by fishing entanglements or strikes by ships. Stricter regulations of Maine’s lobster industry that are meant to limit entanglements with right whales are now on hold after Congress delayed them to 2028.
But Maine lobster gear was found on a dead right whale that was found on Martha’s Vineyard in January, and the fishing industry could face more pressure if it’s linked to additional deaths.
Jones urged anyone who spots a dead whale to report it to the authorities so that research can be done on the causes.
“It’s of concern whenever we get a new case of a large whale that has experienced a mortality event,” Jones said.
