{"id":3266,"date":"2019-02-28T14:27:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=3266"},"modified":"2019-02-28T14:27:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:27:11","slug":"humpback-whale-found-washed-ashore-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2019\/02\/28\/humpback-whale-found-washed-ashore-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"Humpback whale found washed ashore in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whale discovered at Maraj\u00f3 Island should have been in Antarctica at this time of year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young humpback whale has been found dead after being washed ashore on a remote swamp in the Amazon River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The humpback whale should have migrated thousands of miles to Antarctica by this time of year, but members of the conservation group Bicho D\u2019\u00c1gua said they found it at Maraj\u00f3 Island in Brazil\u2019s north-east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They spotted the dead whale last Friday a short distance from the shore after they followed scavenging birds that were circling overhead. The lifeless humpback, which was about eight metres (26ft) long, was found in thick shrubs and brush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe imagine it was floating and the tide took it into the mangrove,\u201d Renata Emin, the president of Bicho D\u2019\u00c1gua, told <\/a>local media<\/a>. \u201cThe question is, what was a humpback whale doing in the month of February on the northern coast of Brazil? It\u2019s unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of biologists examined the carcass over the weekend to figure out how the whale died. The group is expecting a postmortem report within 10 days. \u201cWe are collecting information, identifying marks on the body, to determine if it was trapped in a net or hit by a boat,\u201d Emin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservationists from the Bicho d\u2019\u00c1gua Institute suggest the whale could have been separated from its mother before being forced ashore by high tides during a storm. Other researchers have speculated that the humpback may have swum towards the beach looking for food and suffocated after consuming large amounts of plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government officials told reporters<\/a> the whale had been dead for several days. Though the whale was half the size of a full-grown adult humpback, it was still too large and in too remote an area to be entirely removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Evans, the director of the Sea Watch Foundation, which monitors whales and dolphins off Britain\u2019s coasts, said incidents like these were rare. He said humpback whales were often found in coastal waters and were known to migrate great distances. South American humpbacks breed around the equator and then migrate towards the Antarctic to feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis calf probably got separated from its mother, maybe its mother had died, in the southern summer, and then wandered about trying to find food. The idea that it was killed by ingesting plastic would need some evidence first to support it. It seems to me more likely that it simply starved to death. If they do a postmortem examination, we will have a clearer idea,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whale discovered at Maraj\u00f3 Island should have been in Antarctica at this time of year A young humpback whale has been found dead after being washed ashore on a remote swamp in the Amazon River. The humpback whale should have migrated thousands of miles to Antarctica by this time of year, but members of the conservation group Bicho D\u2019\u00c1gua said… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3267,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3266\/revisions\/3267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}