Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitkans Called to Do Necropsy on Whale

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer

A team of University of Alaska Southeast biologists and other volunteers headed to the south end of Kruzof Island today to perform a necropsy on a humpback whale found dead on the beach.

Jan Straley, a UAS biology professor who is authorized to respond to stranded marine mammals, said the whale carcass was spotted by the Coast Guard Sunday, and reported to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Juneau NOAA office authorized the local Marine Mammal Stranding Network to investigate. Straley is the NOAA stranding agreement holder, Mandy Keogh, NOAA Alaska Regional Stranding coordinator, said.

A dead humpback whale on a Kruzof Island beach is pictured from the air Wednesday. (Photo by Josh Houston)

Keogh said the carcass is near Shoals Point. It’s against federal law to remove any part of a protected marine animal unless authorized.

It’s the first official report of a large deceased humpback in Sitka Sound in several years, Keogh said.

The team includes UAS faculty and marine scientists Drs. Lauren Wild and Ellen Chenoweth; a member of the NOAA office of enforcement as a “bear guard”; Sitka High School biology teacher Stacy Golden; and volunteers Pat Swedeen and Josh Houston. The Coast Guard provided transportation to the site in a Jayhawk helicopter. Other members of the network went in their own vessels.

“The break in the weather provided this opportunity to go out and get the information,” said Paul Kraft, UAS Sitka campus director. He noted that Wild and Chenoweth, whose PhDs are in fisheries, were mentored by Straley.

Straley said the main purpose of the necropsy is to “try to assess the cause of death.” The team is taking samples from the carcass and photographs to help determine whether the whale died of natural causes or as a result of interactions with humans, such as fishing net entanglements or boat strikes.

Straley said scientists plan to use some of the video footage for a National Institutes of Health educational video on how a whale necropsy is conducted.

Straley said humpback whales that feed in Southeast Alaska and breed in Hawaii have been de-listed as threatened or endangered, but a small percentage of the whales that feed in local waters breed in Mexico, where humpbacks are listed as threatened.

Members of the general public are prohibited by federal law from being closer than 100 yards to a living humpback.

Kraft said he’s pleased UAS could be a part of the investigation, and offer expertise.

“It’s our part of the effort at the university to try to understand and learn more about the impact we are having on whales in particular, and in general all of marine life,” he said. “As often as possible they will go when a whale is dead, to help determine the cause of death – if it was struck by a boat or entangled in nets. That’s what’s happening right now.”

Kraft said he was pleased that others were able to take part in order to help and learn; and that it’s a cooperative effort with several groups pitching in.

“I’m looking forward to hearing the results of their findings,” Kraft said.

He added that both researchers and students associated with the Sitka campus are ideally positioned to take advantage of opportunities to learn from the natural environment on Sitka’s doorstep.

“Although most of our focus is undergraduate education we do have research components in some of the faculty workload,” Kraft said. “We always look for opportunities to integrate research so students learn not only from textbooks but experiences in the natural world.”

Straley said the most recent investigation by the local Marine Mammal Stranding Network Team was five years ago on a large whale carcass in Olga Strait.