Truck-sized whale washes up on Crescent Beach

By GianLouis Thompson and Caroline Young | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Updated story:“Whale confirmed to be endangered right whale”

Some time in the early evening, a whale washed up on Crescent Beach yesterday at the Mary Street vehicle access ramp. Deputy Briggs from the St. Johns County sheriff’s office said they have been working on freeing it from a tackle [line] for several weeks.

“I can tell it’s a right whale,” Briggs said. “I was told it was a 3-year-old female.”

The massive whale has been moving around in the ocean for weeks caught in the tackle line, Briggs was told by the FWC (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation).

“It was towed in to shore by the direct of the FWC this afternoon,” Briggs said. “I guess at some point it died from injuries sustained or whatever caused it.”

Briggs said the whale had tackle caught throughout its baleen, which is an organ used by the whale to filter food in the ocean water, according to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

“It’s very disturbing to see that rope inside of its mouth all wrapped up like that,” said Michael Sull, a Pedro Menendez student. Sull has never witnessed such an occurrence within his six years residing in St. Augustine.

The right whale is one of the “most endangered, and closely watched, species on earth,” according to an article in The New York Times. The article reported the right whales can weight up to 70 tons.

Biologists will be at Mary Street around 6 a.m. today to perform the necropsy on the beached whale.