Whale shark dies after getting stranded for hours on Bali beach
A whale shark found washed ashore on Pekutatan Beach in Bali’s Jembrana regency earlier this morning has reportedly died due to exhaustion, just hours after it was first found by local residents in the area.
According to reports, local residents discovered the stranded whale shark at around 5am, and proceeded to try and help push the sea mammal back into the water. They didn’t manage due to low tide and a lack of equipment, and the whale shark remained ashore but alive until about 1pm.
“We tried to save the whale shark, but because we don’t have any equipment and the water started to recede [due to low tide], its chances of floating was very small,” I Gusti Agung Sukasana, who heads the Pekutatan sub-precinct, said.
The whale shark, which was estimated to be around 5 to 6 meters long and weighing about 1.5 tons, sadly succumbed to exhaustion at around 2pm. Officers from the Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) have since buried the corpse.
Authorities reportedly took a small part of its body for research purposes, as they hope to identify its cause of death. In addition, there have reportedly been three separate incidents of whales getting stranded on Pekutatan Beach this year.
Read more news and updates from Bali here.
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