A juvenile fin whale that washed ashore over the weekend and died on Torrance Beach was returned to the ocean on Sunday.
Tests will eventually determine what caused the death of the 50-foot, 25-ton fin whale. The whale was first seen alive Saturday night, August 10, at around 7;30 p.m. and died at around 10:30 p.m. that evening.
And, then around 1 p.m. Sunday, lifeguards and marine experts towed the mammal back out to sea.
Ocean Animal Response and Research Alliance (OARRA), the Pacific Marine Mammal Center and the Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles (MMCC), along with lifeguards, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, police, and Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors worked together following the discovery of the live whale Saturday evening, said Keith Matassa, CEO and founder of OARRA.
“It’s a village to work on one of these large whales when they show up,” Matassa said on Monday.
The groups played “important parts in keeping everybody safe, keeping the whale safe, and letting us be able to examine it to get the samples to try to determine the cause of death,” Matassa said.
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Jules Leon, Marine Mammal Responder for MMCC, said “they were able to get the fluke onto a line and towed the animal out to sea.”
“That way it can sink and return its nutrients back to the ocean,” Leon said.
Some of the samples taken, including blubber and internal organs, could take a month to test for cause of death, but it was evident the whale was malnourished, Leon and Matassa said.
Matassa said the whale was emaciated and “may have been ill for awhile.”
There were some other issues such as abscesses and lesions on the skin and “free blood in its chest,” Matassa said.
“We’re going to be meeting later today to discuss all of that, to find out what it means and how to put it together,” said Matassa on Monday.
Matassa said it is not unusual to see fin whales this time of the year off the South Bay coast. They do not have migratory routes like the gray whale, but during certain times of the year, they pass by locally where food is plentiful.
“We’re very lucky to have them here and it’s great being able to go out on ocean and see them alive and healthy,” Matassa said.
Matassa said there have been around five whales that have beached themselves in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties this year, but it is “unusual for them to come on shore to die like that,” Matassa said. “A lot of times they will die out in the ocean.”
Leon recalled in 1997 when a baby gray whale was beached at Dockweiler Beach in El Seegundo. It was rescued and taken to Sea World where it was rehabbed and released back into the Pacific. It was named JJ the Gray Whale.
–Staff writer Lisa Jacobs contributed to this report
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