A massive, 32-foot long, 20,000-pound humpback whale washed up on Bethany Beach a few days ago, leaving many people hundreds of miles away very upset.
The whale is now buried under the sand after, experts believe, it was killed in a collision with a ship. A shattered jaw is among the injuries the Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute, a Delaware non-profit, saw at the beach.
“Even just that one day made this whale so memorable to us,” said someone from the Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruises, who spotted the whale over the summer.
Turns out the whale was a regular along the New York coast, but had made his way up to their stretch of Cape Cod.
“This particular whale has a very noticeable white spot in the middle of a black area on the tail, and that was how recognized it right off the bat,” she said.
There are laws on the books that try to prevent ships from hitting whales, especially at night or in bad weather, but it would be almost impossible for a ship to spot a whale and stop quickly enough to avoid it.
However, those that keep a close eye on the whale population say it is just torture to see any whale standed, especially ones they’ve gotten to know a bit.
“There are a lot of individual whales that we see year after year that we really come to know and love.”