DILI, 14 March 2025 (TATOLI) – A deceased whale was found by local communities floating off the coast of Ulmera village, in Liquiça Municipality.
The whale measured about 19 meters long, and weighed 45 tons.
The cause of the death of the big mammal is still unknown; however, the Director of the Municipal Department of Agriculture of Liquiçá, José de Jesus, suspects that the whale may have eaten something that caused its death.
“When we arrived at the site, the whale was still breathing, but it ended up dying last night. It is possible that the blood leaking from the whale had something to do with its death,” José told Tatoli.
Director José explained that the Maritime Police Unit, the International Conservation Agency, and the Fisheries Directorate of Liquiçá municipality had visited the site and identified the whale as a sperm whale.
Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales and have one of the widest global distributions of any marine mammal species, according to NOAA Fisheries.
They are found in all deep oceans, from the equator to the edge of the pack ice in the Arctic and Antarctic.
A recent study estimated that there were 844,761 sperm whales globally in 2022.
TATOLI
