15-meter whale carcass found in Hualien's Chongde Bay

Taipei, March 4 (CNA) A partially decomposed 15-meter whale carcass was found in a set-net fishery in Hualien's Chongde Bay on Wednesday, according to local officials.

The Coast Guard said it was notified of the dead whale by the fishery operator at around 9 a.m., and promptly dispatched a marine wildlife expert to the site, about 20 kilometers north of downtown Hualien.

Officials from the Hualien Agricultural Bureau, who were also sent out to help, were able to tow the carcass onto Chongde Beach, where they measured its length at 15.4 meters.

Based on its appearance, the expert said the whale was likely either a fin whale or an Omura's whale, also known as a dwarf fin whale, and had died some time before it washed into the bay, according to the Ocean Conservation Administration.

Both species are baleen whales, which are identifiable by the baleen plate or "whalebone" in their mouth that they use to sieve plankton from the water.

While county government officials originally wanted to use a crane truck to move the creature, an expert from the Taiwan Cetacean Society recommended leaving it on the beach, due to its large size and the bloody water dripping from the carcass.

Representatives from the Taiwan Cetacean Society plan to return to the site on Thursday to perform an autopsy on the whale and determine its cause of death.

Their decision may have been for the best.

In 2004, a 17-meter sperm whale was being transported on a flatbed truck through Tainan to be autopsied when gases from internal decay caused it to explode, splattering rotten blood and organs on nearby shops and cars.

The whale's skeleton was preserved and later put on display at National Cheng Kung University's Nanying Marine Conservation Education Center.