Portstewart Strand, a sandy, two-mile long beach in Portstewart, Country Londonderry, Northern Ireland, has been an important nature conservation area. This was officially assigned as an Area of Specific Scientific Interest and a proposed Special Area of Conversation.
However, the citizens would react when a once conservation area turned into a site where hundreds of people will flock to catch a glimpse of an unusual sight-a dead whale has just washed up.
Initial reports of the said area suggested that the species might be a minke whale. But for Suzanne Beck, a scientist, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland, have doubts about the species.
Minke whales are dark-colored and the smallest baleen whales, inhabiting temperate and polar seas that grows from 22 to 32 feet when fully grown. Female minke whales usually grow slightly bigger than the males.
Respectively, Minke whales are the most common type of whale spotted around the Northern Ireland coast. However, Suzanne Beck believes that the one that was washed up on the Portstewart Strand was a juvenile fin whale. She said that the found whale does not have a distinctive across its body-white band, which is indicative of a minke whale.
Fin whales are marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales, the second largest animal after the blue whale. It grows to 27.3 metres (89.6 feet) long, weighing nearly 74 tonnes.
Experts say that when the whale strands, its tongue blows up and went out from its body. Whale tongues ordinarily invert to accommodate all the food and the water.
Suzanne Beck added, its tongue just blows up after it landed on the shore. Its tongue that was inverted during feeding to accommodate all the food and water, it inflates whenever the whale dies, and the gas goes out after death and goes out like a balloon.
Ms Beck added that whale stranding is not overly rare, but this could be used for future educational studies and purposes. Suzanne Beck is currently studying for a PHD, at Queen's University Belfast in cetaceans.
