Dead whale may have sunk
The animal has been floating a few kilometers in the sea off the coast of Nieuwpoort since Friday afternoon and drifted towards Zeebrugge. The dead whale is not visible from the coast and must therefore be located deeper in the sea. This is necessary to avoid collisions with ships. Yesterday, several patrols tried to map the animal’s position, but bad weather threw a spanner in the works. The search was halted. The Maritime Rescue and Coordination Center (MRCC) then warned all ships of the risk of colliding with the animal.
Still no trace
Meanwhile, the search continues for a whole day, but there is still no trace of the dead fin whale. “There’s a chance that the carcass drifted faster than we predicted. It’s not often that a whale carcass floats in the sea, so we have to make do with prediction models for harbor porpoises or seals. That could explain it. In that case it already is. long passed Zeebrugge and it is now bobbing in Dutch waters,” says Kelle Moreau of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS). “It is also not excluded that the cadaver was torn open and sunk due to the build-up of gases.”
Furthermore, Moreau considers the chance that the carcass will still turn up in Belgian waters is small, given the many actors involved in the search.