Dear friends,
Arillas beach has been for one more time the centre of interest as a rare kind of a whale species has been stranded at Arillas beach three days ago at midday.
When we first noticed it’s appearance just outside the Graziella Taverna.
It was still alive but it would not swim back to the sea but it was remaining in shallow water without moving.
Immediately people from Arillas went in to the water and pushed it back to the deeper water. It swam for several meters towards the north and everyone felt so happy that we managed to help it survive.
Until that time everyone thought it was a dolphin that for some reason had lost its orientation. Unfortunately the mammal was found again in the evening at the north far end of the beach stranded again in shallow water.
Again people went there (including my self this time) we jumped in the sea and we managed to push it back to the deeper water. Although our attempts, it did not want ot go away…. it turned back and left it’s body still in the shallow water like it was found earlier in the day…. what ever it was happening, the animal had decided to die on our beach….. The following morning it was dead I noticed that this mammal was at least 4m long and the dorsal fin was placed further back near to it’s tail.
So I did a research on internet durring the night which concluded that this mamal is a
Ziphius cavirostris ( Ζιφιός), the local port police was informed about the incident.
A couple of officers were sent to take a look. after the mammal was dead, a number of scientists came to take samples of the dead body for further investigation . We even had to move it from the end of the beach next to the pear and we were told to keep it in the water until a scientific team from Spain would arrive to observe and take samples of it too.
Many people came to see the strange animal that looks like a dolphin but it’s much bigger and never aproaches any human presence. (that;s why you would have seen a lot of action on the pier durrign the last two days)
I have been reading in the greek press that it’s a popular kind of whale that lives in the area of the deap open seas of North West Corfu untill Crete and Rhodes. It;s a very shy animal and , therefore it has not been yet possible to be observed much in it’s own nature. Most of the reports are from dead stranded individuals. According to the Scients, it is the only mammal that can dive further than 1000 metres as propably utill 3000 it eats mainly squids, it’s a great hunter of giant squids as some kind of large squid has only been seen and observed in it’s Stomach.
I spoke to an older Fisherman who told me that he has never came across to a “fish” like that so close. He has seen big individuals but only from distance as they always cept away from his boat.
I have proposed the local council to berry the dead mammal in a special way so the in the future we can collect the bones for public view.
Unfortunately we have no picture of it while it was still alive, our exitment and urge to save it was more important.
All though we are all sad about the poor animal we feel very priveleded that we were able to swimm next to it durring it’s last hours we I’m sure it must have been suffering and we hope the analyssises that have been taken from the Scientists will be usefull for the Conservation of it’s species.
Topic: Cuvier's beaked whale stranded in Arillas beach (Read 20411 times)