Similar to what happens with human corpses in the CSI series, a beached whale on the beach is a mystery to be solved. In Spain alone, about half a thousand cetaceans run aground every year . Knowing where they came from, how they lived and why they ended up lying in the sand are some of the questions that whale forensics seek answers to.
But your job is not easy. Because of the thick layer of fat that protects these animals from the cold, they decompose quickly in the sun. However, the difficulty of studying them in the wild places great importance on any information that can be extracted from their corpses. Thus, a whaling forensic not only identifies the reason for death, but also inquires about their health, age, reproductive status and diet .
It is not common to discover new species of animals as large as a whale, but it does happen sometimes. For example, in mid-2016, an unknown variety of beaked whale – a type of cetaceans with a very pronounced snout – was described thanks to DNA that had been extracted from a carcass found in Alaska. Between 2002 and 2004, there were several collective strandings of these odontocetes in the Canary Islands. The pathological anatomy research group specialized in cetaceans at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria determined that there was a relationship between these events and the use of sonar on military ships , which led to the banning of this technology in the area.
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