{"id":116298,"date":"2025-09-05T12:35:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T12:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116298\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:35:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T12:35:28","slug":"body-of-large-whale-washes-up-on-west-cork-coastline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116298\/","title":{"rendered":"Body of large whale washes up on west Cork coastline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The body of what is believed to be a large fin whale has washed up on the Mizen peninsula in west Cork.<\/p>\n

The discovery was made in the Barleycove area yesterday.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Levesque, of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG), said the body was in poor condition when it was discovered.<\/p>\n

“It’s very decomposed and there are large shark teeth evident on the carcass,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nFin whales are the second-largest mammal in the world <\/p>\n

\"A
\nThere was evidence of shark bites on the carcass <\/p>\n

The group is cautioning the public against approaching the whale.<\/p>\n

“Dead animals always represent a health risk so we would advise people not to get too close to it,” she said.<\/p>\n

It is not clear what caused the whale’s death.<\/p>\n

Fin whales are the second-largest mammal in the world and can grow up to 25m long.<\/p>\n

They have a typical lifespan of between 80 to 90 years.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Morning Ireland, marine biologist Jasmine Stavenow Jerremalm, who volunteers with the IWDG, said one or two fin whales wash up on Irish beaches each year.<\/p>\n

“When we went out to it three days ago, it had already been dead for several weeks approximately.<\/p>\n

“It [came] ashore three days ago and we went out to it and we could see that it was a female fin whale and we measured it to 17.5 metres. So, a very large whale,” Ms Stavenow Jerremalm said.<\/p>\n

She also urged the public to stay away from the carcass because they cannot determine why the whale died.<\/p>\n

“To do that, you need our proper post-mortem scheme with veterinary pathologists looking into the cause of death.<\/p>\n

“But we can definitely say which species it was and we could collect samples which are important for future research projects,” Ms Stavenow Jerremalm said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The body of what is believed to be a large fin whale has washed up on the Mizen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-116298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}