A fin whale got stranded in shallow waters in the James River near a Newport News shoreline Tuesday morning and later died.
After the whale died Tuesday afternoon, it was moved closer to Portsmouth, according to Matthew Klepeisz, spokesman for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. Members of the marine science center’s stranding team responded when the whale was first reported. The whale was moved closer to the shore of an island near Portsmouth so crews can perform an necropsy, or animal autopsy, Klepisz said. There were no obvious marks on the animal that indicated how or why it died, Klepisz said.
“We don’t have any information as to why it may have died, nor were there any clear external injuries,” Klepisz said.
The investigation will likely be complete by the end of Wednesday, Klepisz said.
The whale was found along the 700 block of Waterfront Circle, near Ivy Tower in southeast Newport News. The Newport News Police Department’s Marine Unit responded to the call and called in the stranding team, according to police spokesman Brandon Maynard.
Hazel Banks, who lives nearby, told the Daily Press she called the police department’s nonemergency line when she saw the whale about 8 a.m.
Banks, who named the whale Hazel, said at first she thought it was a log. She said she was concerned because it was so close to the shore.
“Where Hazel is right now, you can walk out there in the summertime,” she said Tuesday morning.
Banks gathered with about a dozen other people who watched as Newport News police monitored the whale from a nearby boat.
