Sperm whale discovered dead on Angus beach

Public urged to avoid the area which is now classed as biohazard

A rescue mission to save a whale which washed up on a beach near Monifieth turned into a recovery operation last night after the animal was found dead.

The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) team was called to a stretch of shoreline between Monifieth and Barry Buddon shortly before 6pm yesterday following earlier sightings of what appeared to be a cetacean which had live stranded.

HM Coastguard from Carnoustie and Arbroath were called to assist, as was the RNLI’s inshore lifeboat at Broughty Ferry, but volunteers eventually found that the whale, which has been identified as a 12-metre-long sperm whale by experts on site, had died.

Teams were out in the pitch darkness last night to try to secure the site, and warned members of the public not to visit the beach for their own safety.

Paul Smith, the BDMLR’s local coordinator, revealed that an initial sighting was made by a dog walker at around 3pm, although he confirmed the sad news the whale did not survive.

“It wasn’t notified until later on but we’ve obviously responded with our team and we’ve found it subsequently dead,” he said.

“We’re just doing a search at the minute of the beach to see if it is just the one animal, and there is a possible concern of things showing up on Thursday morning.

“We’re keeping an open mind but at the minute it’s confirmed as one.”

Whales are regularly spotted in the waters off the east coast, but Mr Smith admitted it was not a usual occurrence to spot a whale of this size in the Tay.

“We get a lot of animals and there are a lot of whales traversing all these waters and migration routes,” he added.

“But it is uncommon to get big whales visiting the Tay like this – they’ll pass by certainly but it’s not very often they come in.

“The problem with sperm whales is that it’s the wrong species in the wrong area. “They don’t do well on the east coast. “They should be on the west coast and there’s nothing out there for them to eat, so it’s more than likely it has suffered dehydration or starvation and has succumbed. It could also be ill, but we don’t know until we do a post-mortem.”

Experts were expected to revisit the beach at first light, but Mr Smith warned people to stay away.

“We don’t want anybody down there because this is now a biohazard,” he said.

“It’s going to start deteriorating – you can get a lot of nasty diseases from these animals so we don’t want anybody down there.”

It is uncommon togetbig whales visiting the Tay like this. PAUL SMITH

Picture: Kim Cessford. A hoped-for rescue mission became a recovery operation.