“It is a young whale 12 meters long. He has no signs of injury, he is just thin,” Bernard Martin, a volunteer with the National Stranding Network (RNE), told AFP. working in coordination with the Pélagis Observatory, present on the beach of Ty Anquer, where the whale was stranded.
«He is not dead but he is dying. We tried to put him back in the water but the tidal range was not enough,» he added.
The cetacean was partly covered with damp sheets to ease its suffering. «His skin is very fragile, it is made to be in the water all the time», explained Mr. Martin, without commenting on the causes of the grounding of the three whales, while the analyzes are still in progress for the second.
«The first two were very thin,» he only remarked.
The whale was discovered Monday morning by walkers, according to an elected official, confirming information from the daily Le Télégramme.
«It’s been at least three weeks since she was in the bay» of Douarnenez, said Jean-Luc Hubert, deputy mayor of Ploéven, while a cetacean was seen several times in the area.
Many onlookers gathered on the beach to see the whale on Monday afternoon, but the gendarmes delimited a security perimeter for health reasons.
«These are mammals capable of transmitting diseases,» Martin said.
This is the third cetacean discovered stranded on a beach in Finistère since the beginning of September. Two whales were stranded a few days apart in Finistère, on the island of Sein, on September 2 and on a beach in Tréguennec in the bay of Audierne, on September 10.
Teams from the Iroise Marine Nature Park took scientific samples last week from the second whale before its body was cut up to be evacuated to a rendering centre.
The rorqual of the island of Sein, on the other hand, could not be towed nor cut on the spot.
These cetaceans can die in particular of collision with a ship, of diseases or by absorbing plastic waste or polluting products.