A 42-foot-long fin whale that was found stranded in South Kingstown on Thursday has been euthanized.
Sarah Callan, Animal Rescue Program Manager at the Mystic Aquarium, says the whale was emaciated and unable to free itself at high tide after becoming stranded in Potter Pond.
“It’s really difficult to watch an animal go through what this animal was going through yesterday,” Callan said. “I can say that I did feel some relief when the animal did pass last night just because it was so hard to watch it in that condition.”
Callan says it’s extremely unusual to find fin whales in this area. They are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Callan said that while it appears that the 25,000-pound whale had been sick for quite some time, it’s not clear if that’s the reason why it became stranded.
“We’re going to conduct a necropsy, so we’re going to look at the entire external body,” Callan said. “We’re going to go internally and look at all the organs. We’ll collect a lot of data today and not only learn more about what happened with this specific whale, but also different threats that this species faces as a whole.”
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said on X that its staff will take part in the necropsy.
“As sad as the death of a whale is,” the department said, “it offers scientists the rare opportunity to gather valuable information, which, hopefully, can be used to protect these animals from further endangerment.”
