ISLESFORD, Maine — The carcass of a 36-foot humpback whale that washed ashore on Little Cranberry Island Christmas Day showed some signs it had been entangled in fishing gear, but officials from the College of the Atlantic have yet to determine the exact cause of death.
Harbormaster Bruce Fernald’s family walked down to the shore at the east end of the island after the weather cleared Christmas afternoon and found the whale at the high tide mark, Fernald said Sunday.
“Merry Christmas, huh?” he said. “There are no real signs of what could have done it in. It did come over some pretty heavy-duty rocks and ledges and got banged up a bit.”
Still, Fernald, a fisherman himself, said the whale appeared to have been caught up in fishing lines at some point.
“There were some entanglement signs, but nothing I saw that was deep,” he said. “You could just see a little groove in about two or three places on its tail — it was nothing that I would think would kill a whale, but I don’t know.”
Stefanie Alley, who fishes near Islesford, volunteered to take a sample of the whale to allow the College of the Atlantic’s Allied Whale Program to perform a necropsy.
Calls to the college’s Allied Whale Program were not returned on Sunday.
Fernald said he’s only seen one entangled whale in 40 years fishing, but added that fishermen “just hold our breath” when a whale carcass washes up.
“The last one in the world that wants to see a whale entangled is a fisherman, but a lot of environmentalists out there don’t want to see us in business,” he said.
Fernald said the whale still sits on the shore near the old Coast Guard station, and will likely stay there “until we get another really high-runner tide and the right wind. Then hopefully it will go out and get buried at sea somewhere.”