Henry is the 30ft fin whale that got stranded on the sands of Dee estuary, North Wales on June 12 and later on died two days after, on June 14.
Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) carried out a post-mortem to identify the cause of death and find out why he ended up out on the sea.
The autopsy revealed that Henry was a one-year-old male calf that was struggling to find food as there had been no signs of new eating in his stomach, which suggests that he was in poor health.
The Heartbreaking Death of Henry
According to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDLMR), the group who initiated the rescue mission, but there were no more signs of life left on the whale when they spotted it on June 13. A day before that, the whale was stranded on Dee estuary, and rescuers were initially positive.
When the tide refloated the whale, it spent some time reorienting itself before circling the rescue boat and heading out to the open water.
"We are cautiously optimistic that this has been a successful refloat of the young fin whale, and we would ask people in the local region to please keep an eye out over the weekend as it may well remain in the area," BDMLR said days before the whale died.
But it was stranded the next day again, so rescuers rushed forward to cover its body with sheets and pour water over it to keep it alive, before trying to help the whale back to the sea.
However, because of its size and weight, and also the geography of the area, the rescuers had a hard time getting the animal closer to the water to help relieve the pressure on its body, BDMLR said.
They also cannot drag the whale by its tail for fear that it will cause significant injuries. Moreover, the option of putting it to sleep is also incredibly difficult for many reasons related to the whale's size.
"We are saddened to say that the outlook today is looking less positive than yesterday," the rescuers said.
A Post-mortem Examination on Henry
The investigators have collected further samples from the dead whale's carcass for analysis to shed more light on the reason behind its death and why it became beached.
They have removed the carcass from the shoreline by a large crane and was laid out in a blue tarpaulin to conduct the post-mortem examination on the beach.
Workers inspect the whale's external body before they stripped away its blubber first so that they can examine its stomach and other internal organs.
According to experts, the calf was in moderate to poor nutritional condition, and they found no evidence of recent feeding. They also did not find any marine debris or plastic inside the whale's stomach.
However, they did find an infestation of parasites in its internal organs, including the kidneys, stomach, intestines, and blubber.
CSIP said that the findings from their gross examination of the whale are considered to be consistent with live stranding of an animal that is nutritionally compromised and out-of-habitat.
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