{"id":512530,"date":"2026-01-13T06:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512530\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T06:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:12:20","slug":"dead-humpback-whale-washes-ashore-in-bethany-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512530\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead humpback whale washes ashore in Bethany Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach, Delaware, Thursday after floating at sea for a couple of days.<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/613745777_1331290209016435_2917973264047665036_n.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                              A dead whale washed up in Delaware and a necropsy team found subdermal hemorrhaging and a broken jaw on the whale\u2019s right side.<br \/>\n(Courtesy MERR Institute)                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                Courtesy MERR Institute                            <\/p>\n<p>                                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/613759041_1331290522349737_303577816001899433_n.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                              A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach in Delaware.<br \/>\n(Courtesy MERR Institute)                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                Courtesy MERR Institute                            <\/p>\n<p>                                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/614255657_1331290785683044_8452235361436448237_n.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                              A dead whale washed up in Delaware and a necropsy team found subdermal hemorrhaging and a broken jaw on the whale\u2019s right side.<br \/>\n(Courtesy MERR Institute)                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                Courtesy MERR Institute                            <\/p>\n<p>                                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/614680634_1331290349016421_7213510335312942186_n-986x1254.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                              A dead whale washed up on a beach in Delaware.<br \/>\n(Courtesy MERR Institute)                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                Courtesy MERR Institute                            <\/p>\n<p>A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach, Delaware, Thursday after floating at sea for a couple of days.<\/p>\n<p>The MERR (Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation) Institute said, \u201cthe young 32-foot male, estimated to weigh a minimum of 20,000 pounds, was in the surf zone throughout Thursday night until heavy equipment could arrive\u201d Friday.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when the whale was towed to higher ground, for a postmortem examination.<\/p>\n<p>Its necropsy team found subdermal hemorrhaging and a broken jaw on the whale\u2019s right side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis type of blunt force injury is often associated with a large ship strike, and the nature of the wounds indicates that the whale was still alive when it was struck,\u201d the MERR Institute said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MERRInstitute\/posts\/pfbid0uvB5BmAXUFQC7FreBnpoiRH1Bo2ho3wbghfs15AX9xiYYm1gBtKzRJFGFVcsEmYMl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Facebook post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The organization said the whale was buried on the beach, as \u201cthese large whales cannot be safely towed out to sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suzanne Thurman, the MERR Institute\u2019s executive director called the event \u201ctragic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMERR\u2019s volunteers were as wonderful as ever, and worked tirelessly to assist in examining the whale in a very short window of time. We would also like to thank DNREC [Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control] for providing heavy equipment resources for towing and burial of the whale,\u201d Thurman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dead humpback whale washed up in the Ocean Ridge community of Bethany Beach, Delaware, Thursday after floating&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":512531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[225476,905,229062,229063,159,67,132,68,31918,837],"class_list":["post-512530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bethany-beach","tag-delaware","tag-merr-institute","tag-ocean-ridge","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-whale","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115886315574177593","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}