Another whale washed ashore

Another whale has been washed ashore at Domunlie in the Nzema East Municipality of the Western Region.

Measuring about 10meters, the mammal was washed ashore last Friday.

This makes it a total of 10 whales which have been washed ashore in Ghana this year alone.

According to Friends of the Nation, a non-governmental organisation, there have been 21 reported cases of dead whales washing ashore since 2009.

A team of officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) led by Mr Joseph Sefah Debrah, a senior lecturer at the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) have initiated investigations to find out the cause of death of the whale.

According to Mr Debrah, they suspect the whale was hit by a heavy object or it might have collided with a vessel.

He explained the back vertebra of the sea mammal appeared to have been broken which suggested that it might have had an impact with a heavy object that was huge enough to kill it.

“All the internal organs are actually engorged with lots of blood which means it had suffered internal injury,” he added.

He said the nature of the tissue of the whale indicated that it might have died less than a week ago.

Mr Debrah said it was improper for people to assume that oil drilling at the jubilee fields was causing the death of the whales but noted that due to the oil drilling activities, there has been an increase in oil tanker traffic in Ghana waters, which may also pose as a danger to the sea mammals.

He said he had taken samples of the whale’s tissues for proper laboratory tests that would produce a more comprehensive report on the cause of death of the marine mammal.