Adult sperm whale was washed up on Gwynedd beach, investigation finds

An adult female sperm whale was spotted at about 8am at Porth Neigwl, on the south coast of the Llŷn Peninsula, on May 8.

It was also only the fourth female recorded stranded in the UK in the last 100 years.

A Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) team from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Marine Environmental Monitoring conducted an on-site field necropsy on May 10.

The whale washed up on Porth Neigwl. (Image: CSIP-MEM)

CSIP said: “Unusually, the 10.8m-long whale was an adult female - adult status was confirmed onsite from scars on the ovaries and the appearance of the uterus.

“The whale was in markedly poor nutritional condition. From initial images, we were concerned about a potential mass on its side.

“We were rather surprised to find onsite that this was actually the ribs protruding- the whale had significant muscle atrophy and was the thinnest sperm whale we've ever worked on.

“Various parasites were found at several sites but were considered to be an incidental finding.”

The whale's ribs were protruding from its side, while the creature was in markedly thin condition. (Image: CSIP-MEM)

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Body of sperm whale found washed up on beach in Gwynedd

Once located by Abersoch Coastguard Rescue Team last week, representatives from British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) later confirmed that the whale had sadly died.

Visitors to the beach at the time were also warned by the Coastguard team not to approach the whale.

Part of the beach is fully cut off at high tide, so any contact with the whale would have impaired the results gathered from the autopsy.

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An aerial shot on the sperm whale (Image: CSIP-ZSL)

This sighting came just two days after a minke whale was discovered washed up off the coast of Scotland.

CSIP added: “Not surprisingly, there was no evidence of recent feeding, as has been the case with nearly every deep diving species we've examined in the past.

“Small numbers of squid beaks were present in the stomachs. There was no significant evidence of plastic/debris ingestion, just a few fragmentary pieces found.

“Sections of intestinal tract were collected for microplastic analyses by colleagues from Exeter Marine.

“The interim findings are considered to be consistent with marked nutritional loss and live stranding of a very out of habitat individual- further analyses of diagnostic samples are ongoing at ZSL and may help us learn more.

“Large numbers of samples and data have been collected and will hopefully help inform ongoing and future collaborations with CSIP partners and shed further light on the lives of these amazing animals.

“There is also a broader question of why this whale may have ended up in the region.

“Given all these atypical events have occurred over the last decade, is this perhaps yet more evidence of a world changing around us.”