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Marine mammals in agony: After stranding, the animal was alive for several hours
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BERNARD BARRON / AFP
A whale stranded near Calais in northern France on Monday and died a few hours later.
The animal may have died while attempting to get back into the water from the beach, said Jacky Karpouzopoulos of wildlife conservation organization CMNF.
According to this, the 7.60 meter long and 3.5 ton whale was injured when she stranded, but was still alive.
The animal was a northern bottlenose whale, which is very rarely found this far south.
"These animals usually swim deep in arctic waters," said whale expert Thierry Jauniaux from the University of Liège.
Karpouzopoulos confirmed, "I've never seen anything like it in my 40 years of work." According to Karpouzopoulos, the whale probably landed on the beach because it was disoriented.
Experts had decided against carrying the animal back into the water, instead hoping the tide would help it get off the beach.
According to Jauniaux, several whales of the same species have recently washed up on the coasts of Belgium and the Netherlands.
The phenomenon could be due to "pollution, new diseases or increasing shipping traffic," he said.
In February, a 9.50 meter long humpback whale was found dead on a northern French beach - according to Karpouzopoulos also an "extraordinary occurrence".
This spring, a killer whale strayed into the Seine but could not be rescued despite intensive efforts.
In the summer, a beluga whale, also in the Seine, had to be put out of its misery after all rescue attempts had failed.
There were two mass strandings of pilot whales in New Zealand in October.
Around 480 animals died within a few days.
sol/AFP