Carcass of whale shark washes ashore in Tamil Nadu

MADURAI: The carcass of a male whale shark washed ashore at Aatrangarai in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
“The 21-foot-long whale shark is estimated to be aged around 35 to 40 years and could have died three days ago as the carcass started to decay,” Ramanathapuram forest range officer S Sathish said.
The carcass had a circumference of 11.8 feet and weighed nearly 1.5 tonne.“It did not have external injuries. So the possibility of a boat hit or hunting is ruled out,” he said.
Palk Bay wildlife warden A S Marimuthu inspected the carcass. Postmortem performed on the carcass by veterinarian Nizamudeen in the afternoon revealed that the whale had suffered internal haemorrhages possibly after hitting a rock.
The carcass was buried in a pit after bleaching powder and acid were sprinkled on it.
Whale shark, which is considered the biggest fish species, is a Schedule I species protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Officials said there are only around 7,000 whale sharks in the world. The filter feeder primarily preys on planktons and fish egg. An Adult lives up to 70 or 130 years. Dots pattern on individuals vary like stripes of a tiger.
This is said to be the fourth incident of a whale shark beaching on the Ramanathapuram shores in as many years. The three other incidents were at Mukundarayar Chathiram in Mandapam range, below Pamban Bridge (with plastic in the carcass) and at Vedalai.
There was also an incident of a sub adult being rescued and released to sea at Vedalai in 2018.