A local research institute is investigating the cause of death for a whale that beached near Bethany Beach on Thursday.
A dead whale beached near Bethany Beach on January 8, 2026
MERR Institute
The Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute (MERR) said they were alerted Tuesday to a juvenile humpback whale floating at sea level about 2 miles off of Indian River Inlet.
The whale is bloated, but they say a postmortum necropsy will be needed to determine the cause of death.
It’s the third dead whale found off of the Delaware coast in the past 10 months, after a 35-foot long humpback whale was found on March 31, 2025, just three weeks after another one was round near Delaware Seashore State Park.
Humpback whales migrate between the West Indies and the Gulf of Maine to calve and mate in the southern regions, according to NOAA.
A dead whale seen floating in the Atlantic Ocean off of Bethany Beach on January 8, 2026
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