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Puerto Ricans release study to increase rehabilitation efforts

© Matt Villano

A study was released last week regarding a mass stranding of five goosebeak whales that occurred this summer in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The study, put together by the Carribean Stranding Network, was published as an effort to spur Puerto Ricans to create facilities to help stranded animals - at this time, there are no facilities in Puerto Rico to rehabilitate large cetaceans.

The stranding involved one adult female and four males, and occurred from June 28 to June 30 of last year. CSN personnel with more than 12 volunteers spent two days tending to the stranded animals. Most of the animals were externally in good shape, apart from scratches caused by being stranded on the rocks.

According to the report, the female, the first to strand, was found in the worst shape. She was hardly alive when scientists reached her. Two other animals to strand washed ahore alive, but after rescuing and examining the animals, the decision was made by the CSN and Puerto Rico's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources to euthanize them. Scientists based this decision on the condition, logistical difficulties, and the slim possibilities of their successful rehabilitation.

Once the animals died, necropsies were conducted on each one, documenting gross findings, taking tissues for histopathology and collecting parasites from the blubber; stomach, liver and kidneys. Skin tissue was collected for future genetic work. The large male was found to have signs of a cookie-cutter shark bite. All animals were found to have squid beaks and deep-water shrimp in their stomachs. The skull of each animal was collected for the CSN scientific collection; the remainders of the carcasses were either buried or towed out to sea.

While a number of single strandings of Ziphius have been recorded in Puerto Rico, this is the third multiple stranding of goosebeak whales in the northeastern Caribbean. In 1965, an epizootic event occurred on the southeast coast of Puerto Rico when 11 members of the species stranded in La Parguera. In February 1991, four goosebeaks were stranded on St.Croix in the US Virgin Islands. The event in Puerto Rico is probably the fourteenth mass stranding recorded worldwide for this species.

The species itself is quite unique. Goosebeak whales are a cosmopolitan cetacean belonging to the family of beaked whales. They are an offshore species, commonly known to strand throughout the world, but rarely in large numbers. They usually measure somewhere around 6 meters or so.

The CSN is a non-profit scientific and conservation organization based at the Universidad Metropolitana in San Juan. The group attended the stranding and put together the study.