Rare whale spotted off Cornish coast
21st October 2011
Marine experts have confirmed the first sighting of a dwarf sperm whale off UK shores
Initially mistaken for a porpoise, the dwarf sperm whale was spotted off Mounts Bay close to Penzance, Cornwall, earlier this month. A local resident first witnessed the rare species while walking along the beach and alerted the local coastguard and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.
Circling the shallow waters for over an hour, the mammal is reported to have become stuck on a reef or rock where a member of the public assisted it by pushing it back out to sea.
This rare sighting has prompted the question – why did this tropical/sub-tropical species stray so far into UK waters?
Duncan Jones, from Marine Discovery Penzance, said it was likely to be one of three reasons: ''There has been a lot of squid this year, which dwarf sperm whales feed on, or it could be ill or injured."
Concerns have been raised as onlookers described the dwarf sperm whale's side as bleeding 'quite a lot', but when approached by a rescue team it swam away.
This sighting is just one of an increasing number of records of warm water species that have been appearing around the British Isles in recent years. Cornwall has become a hot-spot for cetacean sightings with a record number of basking sharks spotted off its shores this year.
Boat tours regularly run off the Cornish coast into the Atlantic Ocean where visitors can spot basking sharks, porpoise, bottlenose dolphins, common dolphins, minke whales, and sometimes even fin whales, the second largest animal on earth.
The dwarf sperm whale, remains such a great mystery to marine biologists that it is listed as 'data deficient' on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Rarely sighted at sea, preferring to stay in deeper waters and feed off fish and crustaceans on the sea floor, most of the information that has been gathered is a result of studies conducted on washed up carcasses. Some scientists suggest their scarcity may have been due to extensive hunting in the past.
Apt to name, the dwarf sperm whale is the smallest species commonly known as a whale. Growing up to 2.7m (8.9ft) in length and 250kg (550lb) in weight, it is in fact smaller than some species of dolphin.
Identifiable by a relatively large or slightly curved dorsal fin, a snout that overhangs the small lower jaw and an overall squarish profile, the species has been said to have a slight shark like appearance.
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