Humpback Whale Stranded on Westport Beach

WESTPORT (WBSM) — A humpback whale was stranded in Westport today.

The whale was discovered near Elephant Rock.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was only able to provide limited details to WBSM Thursday afternoon.

“All the information we have right now is that it was a humpback whale that stranded, and IFAW, our stranding network partner and a federally authorized marine mammal stranding response organization, is the lead for the examination,” a NOAA spokesperson said.

IFAW – the International Fund for Animal Welfare – has not returned a request for information at this time, but we will update the story with any further information when it is available. WBSM has also reached out to MassWildlife.

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According to NOAA, there has been an elevated instance of humpback whale mortalities along the Atlantic coast from Maine through Florida since January 2016. In April 2017, it was declared an “Unusual Mortality Event.”

The interactive map of those mortalities can be found on the NOAA website.

NOAA said that partial or full necropsy examinations were conducted on about half of the 229 whales stranded since 2016, and that “about 40 percent had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement.”

“A portion of the whales have shown evidence of pre-mortem vessel strike; however, this finding is not consistent across all whales examined,” NOAA said. “More research is needed.”

NOAA wanted to remind the public to maintain a safe distance from all marine mammals and to please report all stranded marine mammals and sea turtles to NOAA’s marine mammal and sea turtle stranding hotline 866-755-6622 to be directed to a trained responder.