Blue whale was washed ashore dead on Sunday at Tamil Nadu's Valinokkam Beach.
A twenty metre-long blue whale was washed ashore dead at Tamil Nadu's Valinokkam Beach in Ramanathapuram district on Sunday. Forest officials who carried out the postmortem suspect the whale was hit by a vessel deep in the sea.
Forest Range Officer Sikkanthar Basha told NDTV on Sunday that they were unable to calculate the age of the whale.
"It's a blue whale. We've just finished the postmortem. We suspect the whale must have been hit by a large vessel," Mr Basha said on Sunday
In June, a carcass of an 18-feet-long, one-toed whale shark washed ashore in the same district. The forest officials later buried it on the beach after conducting an autopsy.
Forest Officer Sathish had said at that time that whale sharks are less common in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar and only four have been seen in the past four years.
He had further said that catching such rare creatures violates the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act, under which imprisonment ranges from 3 years to 7 years.