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Touching Dead Oregon Coast Whale Could Mean Fines, Disease |
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Covering 180 miles of Oregon coast travel: Astoria, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Nehalem, Wheeler, Rockaway, Garibaldi, Tillamook, Oceanside, Pacific City, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Newport, Wadport, Yachats & Florence.
05/29/07
Secrets of the Season |
Touching Dead Oregon Coast Whale Could Mean Fines, Disease
Whale photos courtesy Morris Grover, Whale Watch Center
(Seal
Rock, Oregon) – Getting a weird disease or fined as much as $10,000
isn’t worth it, say authorities.
They’re talking about visitors to the central Oregon coast who keep grabbing souvenirs off a dead whale that’s lying about seven miles south of Newport. Some have been snagging bits of baleen from the deceased cetacean – a part of the whale that’s in the mouth and looks like a giant filter. Not only is it illegal to harass or disturb any animal on the beach that’s dead or alive, but it can carry a variety of diseases.
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The 35-foot female gray whale washed up on Sunday morning on a somewhat hidden county beach access between Ona Beach and Seal Rock. In spite of its relative isolation, the beach access was covered with onlookers over the busy weekend, poking and prodding the creature and endangering themselves.
“They
can carry viruses,” said Keith Chandler, manager of the Seaside
Aquarium. “It’s icky and nasty and you should leave it
alone. I mean, it’s just common sense: it’s a big chunk of
rotting flesh. Why would you want to touch it?”
Deceased creatures like this also pose risks to pets.
Morris Grover, head of the Whale Watch Center in Depoe Bay, said the whale died a few days ago, maybe as long as a week before it washed up onshore. “You just don’t know how long it’s been dead, and now it’s this big thing of rotten flesh that people are playing on.”
Grover
estimated there were about 50 people on this normally deserted beach when
he ventured out there this weekend. “I would say hundreds of people
have visited it since it arrived,” he said.
Authorities finally posted signs telling people to keep away, but the higher temperatures the coast is experiencing now help it decompose much faster.
“It was already smelly when it came in,” Grover said. “Here are these people, wandering around, picking pieces off it. But we’re wearing surgical gloves.”
Grover said it was also disrespectful to treat such a grandiose animal this way.
 |
| Ona Beach, just north of where the whale sits. |
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A beach ranger was around periodically during the weekend, patrolling the area and keeping people away from the whale. “Normally, the State Police patrol these situations, but we understand they were busy elsewhere during this busy weekend,” Grover said.
It is hoped the creature will wash away with the tide on Tuesday evening, as officials can’t bury it where it now lies. The beach there has too many rocky areas beneath the sand.
“We may put it on a flatbed and drag it somewhere north of the beach where it can be buried,” Grover said.
Grover
said officials from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network planned to do
a necropsy on the whale to determine why it died, but decided they had
to wait until just before the whale would be buried, as they didn’t
want to leave chunks of its insides and organs hanging out at this spot.
That kind of work should be done at the site of burial.
However, Grover said a necropsy was done on this beach anyway, leaving more of a health risk. “They took what they needed and left stuff hanging out of the whale,” Grover said.
Grover
said the whale has been incorrectly described as about two years old.
“It’s about 35 feet long, and that makes it an almost mature
female. But they’ve been saying it’s two years old, but there’s
no way a whale can grow to that length in two years. So it’s older
than that.”
Police are looking to arrest those who took pieces of the whale. Anyone knowing anything can use the tip line provided by police, at 800-452-7888. Taking souvenirs from the whale is a federal offense and police are asking for help in catching those who did.
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