Update: Dead whale on Oregon coast disappears before scientists can determine what killed it
A 38-foot-long humpback whale that died at sea and washed up on the Oregon coast south of Cannon Beach Friday will undergo a necropsy Monday morning to determine its cause of death, Seaside Aquarium officials said Sunday.
None is apparent from looking at the corpse, the aquarium's Tiffany Booth said. The whale had been dead for quite a while before beaching on Falcon Cove beach, north of Oswald West State Park, she said.
The once-majestic creature isn't looking so fabulous, after its stomach bloated while still at sea, squeezed out through the creature's mouth and other openings in its body, then exploded.
Still, there is beauty and information at the scene. The humpback's body is host to several species of barnacles that grow only on whales. Booth provided The Oregonian/OregonLive with detailed photographs of the Coronula diadema and Conchoderma auritum variety.
Humpback whales travel the longest migration routes of any mammal, aquarium officials said. The longest recorded migration was that of seven humpbacks, including one calf. That pod traveled 5,160 miles, from Costa Rica to Antarctica.
Humpbacks seen along the Oregon Coast travel a mere 3,000 miles between their feeding and breeding grounds. They have been known to complete the epic journey in as little as 36 days.
Humpback whales were so heavily targeted by commercial whaling in the north Pacific that by 1966 there were as few as 1,400 left. Passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and the moratorium banning commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission in 1982, however, allowed the majestic creatures to make an impressive comeback. The group Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpbacks, or SPLASH for short, estimates that their population has rebounded to between 18,000 and 20,000.
Humpbacks were spotted n the Columbia River near Astoria and passing by Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach last September and October, and there are reports of more being seen in those areas this month, Booth said.
-- Betsy Hammond