ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A large whale washed ashore at Anchor Point, drawing tourists and locals on Monday morning, and prompting a response from federal wildlife officials.
Tim Hatfield, a lifelong Homer resident, was among those who discovered the stranded marine mammal. He said he had never seen a beached whale at Anchor Point before.
“You can definitely tell it’s dead. I was looking at it to see if there was any damage,” Hatfield said. “I couldn’t see any blood or any lacerations or anything.”
Hatfield mentioned not seeing any lacerations due to the fact that sometimes whales and other marine mammals are struck by propellers or large boats.
“There’s big ships. You see them out there all the time,” Hatfield said. “I live on the top of West Hill [Road] here, so I can see the water,” Hatfield said. “And, yeah, it seems like this year, there’s more big ships out there than I’ve ever seen before.”
The stranding drew onlookers to the beach. Hatfield said he initially mistook them for officials investigating the whale.
“I kind of thought they were a science team coming to do the whale autopsy or necropsy or whatever you call it on the whale, but I quickly realized they were just tourists, kind of bobbing in the water, taking pictures of it,” Hatfield said.
The Anchor Point whale follows a fin whale found dead in Seward last week. Hatfield said he also found a beached whale on MacDonald Spit last year and photographed another stranded in Seldovia last month.
“I guess that’s four whales and… well, I guess the one was in Seward,” Hatfield said. “So, three whales within a year in Kachemak Bay, I guess.”
According to the last available NOAA report, there were 298 confirmed marine mammal strandings in Alaska in 2023, including 56 large whales. Nineteen percent of all strandings were in Southcentral Alaska.
NOAA said it is aware of the whale and is sending a team to assess it and determine next steps.
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