{"id":888050,"date":"2026-09-11T10:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888050\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:54:11","slug":"victor-harbor-new-details-emerge-on-whale-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888050\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Harbor: New details emerge on whale death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New details have emerged after a juvenile whale was found deceased on a South Australian beach \u2013 with one suspected cause of death ruled out.<\/p>\n<p>Visitors to Dump Beach, near Victor Harbor, on Thursday were greeted with the carcass of a beached whale, believed to be a juvenile minke.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities were alerted to the marooned marine mammal via the Primary Industry Regions SA (PIRSA) hotline, with the Department for Environment and Water responding.<\/p>\n<p>A PIRSA spokesman confirmed on Thursday that the carcass would be tested for H5 bird flu to determine whether it had become the state\u2019s latest mammal victim of the new strain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPreliminary specification has identified the whale as a juvenile minke; however, further analysis of species will occur during necropsy,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRangers did not detect any external injuries. The carcass has been removed and will undergo a necropsy and laboratory testing \u2013 including for H5 bird flu and algal toxins \u2013 to determine the cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe death of marine mammals, while unfortunate, is not an uncommon occurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, test results on Friday confirmed that the whale was not killed by H5 bird flu, having returned a negative result.<\/p>\n<p>Since the avian flu reached Australian shores, it has torn through native bird species and also begun to spread to mammals.<\/p>\n<p>An urban red fox found in Adelaide has already been confirmed as a case, as have seals and dolphins.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities urged beachgoers to steer clear of the carcass as a safety precaution, with testing also set to be carried out for other illness.<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear what the cause of the whale\u2019s death was, with tests also being carried out to see if algal toxins may have played a part.<\/p>\n<p>Read related topics:<a class=\"topic_tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/topics\/adelaide\" data-tgev-container=\"story-topic-links\" data-tgev-label=\"Adelaide\" data-tgev-order=\"1\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev=\"event10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Adelaide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New details have emerged after a juvenile whale was found deceased on a South Australian beach \u2013 with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[379323,457766,383243,457763,385886,457751,457756,457746,457760,457772,378194,457749,457758,390571,457762,457759,3443,457755,457768,457747,64,63,135990,17713,175548,1845,1300,456002,457750,199641,39598,457771,359412,457753,51597,457754,17952,457761,457767,378837,457748,457773,81783,457764,3919,128,457770,1124,2465,116530,27460,230,457765,380609,377679,376740,389955,457752,457757,457769,165057,380546,9357,9052,49079,93254,146382,338],"class_list":["post-888050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-s-death","tag-s-latest-mammal-victim","tag-a-beach","tag-a-beached-whale","tag-a-case","tag-a-juvenile-minke","tag-a-juvenile-minke-authorities","tag-a-juvenile-whale","tag-a-necropsy-and-laboratory-testing","tag-a-negative-result-since","tag-a-part","tag-a-safety-precaution","tag-a-south-australian-beach","tag-a-spokesman","tag-a-victim","tag-a-whale","tag-adelaide","tag-algal-toxins","tag-an-uncommon-occurrence","tag-any-external-injuries","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-shores","tag-beach","tag-beachgoers","tag-bird-flu","tag-death","tag-dump-beach","tag-environment-and-water-responding-a-pirsa-spokesman","tag-fears","tag-friday","tag-further-analysis","tag-h5-bird-flu","tag-h5-bird-flu-and-algal-toxins","tag-hotline","tag-mammals-an-urban-red-fox","tag-marine-mammals","tag-native-bird-species","tag-necropsy","tag-new-details","tag-one-suspected-cause","tag-other-illness-it","tag-pirsa","tag-preliminary-specification","tag-rangers","tag-science","tag-seals-and-dolphins-authorities","tag-south-australia","tag-species","tag-test-results","tag-testing","tag-tests","tag-the-avian-flu","tag-the-carcass","tag-the-cause","tag-the-death","tag-the-department","tag-the-marooned-marine-mammal","tag-the-new-strain","tag-the-primary-industry","tag-the-state","tag-the-whale","tag-thursday","tag-victor-harbor","tag-visitors","tag-whale-carcass","tag-whale-death","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}