ANCHORAGE — Necropsies on two killer whales that died after spending weeks in an Alaska river have provided no obvious reasons for why the animals died.
Veterinarians on Wednesday completed a necropsy on a second killer whale found dead in the Nushagak River.
Two adult female whales were found dead in the river on Saturday, and a third whale, a juvenile, hasn’t been seen since.
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service says over 100 samples were taken from the whales for analysis in hopes of providing a clearer picture of why they died.
A necropsy on the first whale revealed that the orca was carrying a late-term fetus, veterinarians said. That could indicate that she was having pregnancy complications and “that may have been a factor in the whale dying,” said Julie Speegle, spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region.
The necropsy was done by veterinarians on a beach in Dillingham, where the carcass was taken after she was found floating Saturday in the river in southwestern Alaska, a remote and mostly unpopulated part of the state.
Federal biologists have said the rare sighting represented an unprecedented journey into fresh water for the killer whales in Alaska.
The necropsy showed no evidence that the whale died because of human interaction, such as a boat strike or entanglement in fishing gear, said Judy St. Leger, director of pathology and research at SeaWorld who is a member of the necropsy team.
The veterinarians took samples from the whale carcass for tests and hope to answer some basic questions about its age, health, and pod identity. A full report was expected to take a month or two to complete.
“Other than the slimy film that was on the skin surface, there was no other overt evidence of infection,” Speegle said.
The team also did not know yet why the whales were in the river. At one point, the distinctive black and white whales had ventured 30 miles upriver but were turned around and swam lethargically downriver toward Dillingham and the salt waters of Bristol Bay.
Comments (2)
Add commentReally?
So I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) of our federal and state monies are going to be spent on veterinarians and biologists proving Darwin's theory of natural selection in this story. Yes it is unfortunate that two orcas passed away, but from what I understand, there are so many of them throughout the world, they're not listed as endangered, so why all of this expense on these two, possibly three? They're going to put out a full report in a month or two??? I've got an idea, there's an estimated 2.1 million homeless in America...why don't we drop the time & effort on a report on natural selection and spend the money on helping our fellow people in need. Or maybe pay down some of our deficit.
Helping those in need
Nothing personal but I hear claims like this a lot. I think it's a bit toothless to assert generally that wasteful spending happens in civilizations and then just scapegoat the nearest perceived benefactor. In this case, scientists. While I don't deny that buried in this canard lies a worthwhile and challenging question, simply attacking science is a big mistake.
There's a saying that first science is done, then engineering, and then, technology. In fact, I just read a veterinary article yesterday suggesting dolphins may very well be instrumental in helping us understand human cervical cancers some day.
What I want to stress is this: science and fact finding are not our enemies. No civilization that I'm aware of ever ran itself into ruin because it was too rational or too reasonable or too committed to the truth (paraphrasing Sam Harris here I think).
No, the truly obscene--and I use that word purposefully because it is a brain imploding obscenity--allocations of resources that actually do threaten the health and stability of humanity are swallowed up not by science but by gargantuan war machines and deep pocketed faith based infrastructures.
But I understand why this is so because of evolutionary theory. We are 21st century cousins of chimpanzees still with brains that evolved to live in the Stone Age. Just look around, do we not act the part far too often?
Mike