Third giant whale in a month dies on beach in Bali

DENPAsar: A 17m long sperm whale died after washing up on a beach in Bali, conservation officials said Sunday.

A male sperm whale was found stranded on Yere Beach in West Bali’s Zembrana region on Saturday afternoon.

“We are currently trying to bring the bodies ashore to make autopsy testing easier and we will bury them after testing,” Permana Yudiarso, a local maritime and fisheries official, told AFP on Sunday.

This is the third whale to appear on the beaches of Bali, a popular destination for vacationers only in April.

An 18m long male sperm whale has been stranded in the Klungkung area off the eastern coast of Bali.

Prior to this, on April 1st, a Bryde’s whale weighing more than 2 tons and measuring more than 11m in length was found stranded on the beach in Tabanan. The whale’s body was already rotting when it was found by locals.

Yudiarso told AFP there were initial suspicions that the sperm whale spotted on Saturday also died of illness “like the one that was stranded a few days ago.”

He was skinny and looked sickly,” he said.

Yudiarso said autopsy tests would take at least three weeks to complete, but forensic experts found that the whale’s lungs were bleeding slightly and its colon was filled with fluid.

The police blocked off the place to prevent people from stealing the mammal’s meat or body parts.

In 2018, a sperm whale was found dead in Indonesia with more than 100 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach, raising concerns about the Southeast Asian archipelago’s massive marine debris problem.

Indonesia is the world’s second largest producer of marine debris after China.