Autopsy scheduled for whale found dead in Pass Christian

An autopsy is scheduled Sunday to determine what killed a rare whale found washed up Saturday in Pass Christian.

Officials learned of the whale about 9:40 a.m., said Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. His group works with other scientists to investigate when marine animals are found on area beaches.

Solangi said it is unusual for a deep-water whale to be in the Mississippi Sound. It is possible the whale got sick, he said, and wandered toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where it was found stranded just west of the Pass Christian Harbor.

He estimated the whale is about 30 feet long and weighs about 15,000 pounds.

Solangi’s team spent Saturday securing the carcass and collecting samples and measurements for the necropsy, an animal autopsy. Denise Boyd, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, will be that team’s leader.

The whale may be a Rice’s whale, he said, but genetic testing will be needed to confirm that. A Google search shows that Rice’s whale, also known as the Gulf of Mexico whale, is a species of baleen whale found in the northern Gulf of Mexico. If the testing shows it is a Rice’s whale, this would be only the sixth stranding of that species in the Gulf of Mexico since 2002.

The Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. Solangi says it is believed there are fewer than 100 individual Rice’s whales throughout the Gulf.