AN initial investigation into a dead whale carcass found floating in Bahraini waters this week has determined the animal died from natural causes.
The probe was ordered after environmental campaigners expressed concern about the welfare of the country’s marine life.
However, authorities yesterday towed the five-tonne carcass to the coast of Salman Town, where samples were taken before it was loaded onto a tow truck and driven to a waste burial site in Askar.
“We got word of the body on Tuesday and we went to the whale the next morning,” said Ali Shuaib, an environmental technician at the Supreme Council for Environment.
“We found it nearly seven to eight kilometres out to sea, off the coast of Salman Town.
“We thought the best way to deal with it was to drag it to the beach, so we could deal with it and remove it.
“It took us four to four-and-a-half hours to drag it.
“It might have gotten lost in the waters and, most likely, this death was from natural causes.
“Bahrain and the Gulf do not have many types of whales, but this is the most common one.
“It may have followed one of the ships here, as some whales tend to do, and died when it left its natural habitat.
“The waters in these areas are shallower than they are used to, so it might have got stuck and died.”
The carcass was that of a baleen whale and measured nearly 16 metres in length.
It was so big that police on Tuesday issued a warning to seafarers to be aware of the dead whale, which was floating in waters off Bahrain’s northwest coast.
Mr Shuaib said it appeared to have been dead for a week.
The carcass was disposed of at the same landfill that several dead sea turtles, which were found dead in Bahrain last month, were dumped.
Those sea turtles were found on shores across Bahrain within the space of a week, after ingesting or choking on plastic waste.
The whale carcass prompted further concerns among the country’s environmentalists, particularly after video emerged last week of a dolphin pup choking on fishing net material.
However, Mr Shuaib said it was not the first time a whale had died from natural causes and surfaced in Bahrain’s waters, highlighting a similar discovery last year and in 2017.
“These things happen and the Supreme Council has a directory of the mortality rate of creatures in our waters, such as sea turtles and dugongs,” he told the GDN.
“We keep track of these incidents.
“This year there are actually fewer sea turtle deaths than previous years, thanks to the trawling ban, but for other creatures the mortality rate is about the same.”
Bahrain has imposed a ban on trawling as part of measures to protect marine life and revive fish stocks, which have plummeted by 90 per cent since 2004.
The country has also started regulating single-use plastic bags.
ghazi@gdn.com.bh
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