The cetacean with impressive dimensions had been seen on Friday on the island of Breast. Strandings of whales of this size are relatively rare on the French coasts.
The cetacean found dead Friday on the island of Sein (Finistère) is a fin whale of about twenty meters, we learned on Saturday from the maritime prefecture of the Atlantic. “The cetacean has moved about fifty meters with the tide, it is on the same rocky plateau. It is a fin whale of about twenty meters“, Said Saturday morning the maritime prefecture to AFP.
The maritime prefecture has issued an urgent notice to navigators. “The carcass is likely to run aground and drift with the currents. It is recommended to navigate with caution around the position, keeping an attentive and visual lookout because the cetacean is not marked on the surface“, indicates the notice which specifies that the whale weighs approximately 25 tons. At the start of the afternoon on Friday, the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (CROSS) Corsen had been informed of the presence of the whale of impressive dimensions in the south-east of the small Breton island.
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Strandings of cetaceans of this size are relatively rare on the French coasts. In 2020, five fin whales were identified on the Atlantic coast, according to a report by the Pélagis observatory, a specialist in marine mammals. In November 2021, a fin whale of 19 meters and about fifteen tons was stranded in the port of Calais.
The fin whale, sometimes nicknamedthe greyhound of the seas“, is “the second largest mammal on the planet by size, after the blue whale“, indicates the organization of preservation of endangered species WWF on its website.