43ft & 20Tonne Whale washed ashore on beach & Officials mount 6 hour operation to remove body in N.Ireland
This is the moment a 43ft whale was hitched onto the back of a lorry and removed from a beach after washing ashore.
Three diggers were required to lift the 20-tonne marine mammal onto a lorry after she was found in Portstewart, County Londonderry.
She was the third sei whale to have washed ashore in Ireland in the last eight years, and is believed to have died of old age.
Joe Breen, from the Department of the Environment, said: ‘We tried to get it on to a trailer with two diggers (but) we needed a bigger digger.
‘We were able to get a 40ft rig from a company working on a road dualling scheme, but it took all three diggers to lift the whale.'
He told the Belfast Telegraph that the whale turned out to be an adult female sei whale, despite experts earlier thinking it was a minke whale.
She was seen floating in the surf by high tide at 2pm, and the removal operation began two hours later - before finishing by 10pm.
Mr Breen also told the BBC that up until 2005 there had only been 14 sei whales stranded around the British coast in the previous century.
There are around 12,000 'Balaenoptera borealis' sei whales in the world. They can live for about 65 years but are an endangered species.
Three diggers were required to lift the 20-tonne marine mammal onto a lorry after she was found in Portstewart, County Londonderry.
She was the third sei whale to have washed ashore in Ireland in the last eight years, and is believed to have died of old age.
Joe Breen, from the Department of the Environment, said: ‘We tried to get it on to a trailer with two diggers (but) we needed a bigger digger.
‘We were able to get a 40ft rig from a company working on a road dualling scheme, but it took all three diggers to lift the whale.'
He told the Belfast Telegraph that the whale turned out to be an adult female sei whale, despite experts earlier thinking it was a minke whale.
She was seen floating in the surf by high tide at 2pm, and the removal operation began two hours later - before finishing by 10pm.
Mr Breen also told the BBC that up until 2005 there had only been 14 sei whales stranded around the British coast in the previous century.
There are around 12,000 'Balaenoptera borealis' sei whales in the world. They can live for about 65 years but are an endangered species.
Music : Universal by Kevin MacLeod
Source : DailyMail , Belfast Telegraph
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