Rare sight
A humpback whale carcass that has washed up along the shoreline near Harbourville, Kings County, is a concern for marine wildlife officials because of its thin frame.
A humpback whale carcass has washed up along the shoreline of a small community near Harbourville.
The carcass remains on a beach near Donnellan’s Brook, off Shore Road, where beach access has allowed dozens of people to walk over and see the dead whale for themselves.
The carcass appears to be a fully grown adult humpback whale, with no wounds or other trauma visible in its current position. Even with rising tides bringing more water around the carcass, its mouth, fins and tail remained visible at 10 a.m. on March 19.
High winds and rough waters mean the carcass is being pushed further down the beach from where it was first spotted. Duncan Karsten, who was among the first people to see the whale after it was spotted the morning of March 18, estimates it has already moved over 200 feet.
Karsten lives on Shore Road near the beach access area and said seeing the massive animal wash up was a sad occasion. He was among the first people to see the carcass March 18, and ventured down to the beach again March 19 to see what further damage the rough surf may have caused to the carcass.
“It’s still very well intact, you can tell it hasn’t been deceased for long. This is a once-in-a-lifetime sighting,” he said.
He recalled seeing at least one humpback whale breaching in the waters near Harbourville just this past summer, a rare sighting since humpback whale sightings rarely occur at the end of the Bay of Fundy and leading into the Minas Basin.
“It’s hard to say whether this is the same whale, but I do know that sighting was a very rare one, so it makes you wonder,” he said
Renee Forsythe, whose family owns a cottage in Baxter’s Harbour, was also at the beach March 19. She regularly walks along the coastline and beach areas, and said that while she’s seen many seals and porpoises, she has never seen a whale, alive or dead.
She was among several people who submitted information to a Brier Island whale watching company, wondering whether the whale was one who had been spotted on whale watching trips.
“In forty years, my family has never once seen a whale in this area. We know they don’t come up here, since the bay narrows once the basin starts and the currents change, so this is concerning,” she said.