GALVESTON, Texas – Earth movers-movers placed the remains of the giant, 45 foot-long male sei whale, into a sandy grave on the beach in Galveston Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier, scientists started the long process of a necropsy, an animal autopsy, on athe giant whale just yards from where it was discovered Tuesday morning stranded in the surf.
Heidi Whitehead, the executive director of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, said, "Because it is such a deep diving-diving species, there's still very little known about whales of this size. So, any information we collect is helpful on these guys. If we can learn more about what caused the animal to come ashore, then that would be very useful information."
Workers collected organ and tissue samples that will be sent to special labs across the country. While there were a lot of people around the whale, they have to follow federal standards to preserve the samples.
"Very rare. We'd never seen a whale. We’ve seen dolphins or something but never a whale,” said Edward Myles. He and his family drove more than an hour from Crosby to see the giant mammal on the beach. Myles said, "We heard it on the news there. So we drove down here from Crosby to see this with our own eyes. I'd never seen one. Pretty big. It's big. Very big."
Scientists said the whale probably moved away from the others and got stranded because it was ill.
As quickly as this operating room on the beach opened, it closed, just feet from the whale's final resting place.