A blue whale, a mammal believed to be the world’s largest animal, washed up on a beach on the island of Chiloé in southern Chile after dying in the sea, local authorities said on Sunday.
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Residents of the town of Puerto Elvira in the metropolitan area of Ancud reported the discovery of this gigantic whale on a small beach in the archipelago, about a thousand kilometers south of the capital Santiago, on Saturday afternoon.
The Chilean National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca), sent to the scene of the crime, confirmed on the social network X (ex-Twitter) that it was indeed “a large whale of the Balenopteridae family”.
“We helped identify the specimen and it is preliminary evidence that it is a blue whale,” Sernapesca added.
For his part, his regional manager Cristian Hudson, quoted in local media, stated that “given its condition, the whale must have died at sea some time ago and would have been adrift in that condition”.
Conservation groups point out that the area is heavily frequented by boats from the aquaculture industry and heavy maritime traffic. They called for an investigation to determine if the animal was the victim of a collision.
According to the Chilean Cetacean Conservation Center (CCC), the Balenopteridae (or cetacean) family is very diverse and includes several species ranging from around nine meters in the minke whale to 30 meters in the blue whale, which is therefore considered the largest animal on the planet Earth.