Fin whale struck by cruise ship in Sitka Sound

The tugboat Banner pulls a dead fin whale off the nose of the cruise ship Norwegian Joy this morning near Middle Island. (James Poulson / Daily Sitka Sentinel)

By Shannon Haugland

Daily Sitka Sentinel

A dead fin whale was pulled from the bulbous bow of the cruise ship Norwegian Joy this morning as the ship made its way toward the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal for its port call in Sitka.

The fin whale was removed from the bow and towed by a tug boat hired by the cruise company to a beach near town. The incident delayed the arrival of the cruise ship into port.

Lauren Wild, Sitka area stranding coordinator for NOAA Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network, said she was notified of the situation at 8:20 a.m. by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement, and five minutes later informed by the NOAA Marine Mammal Stranding coordinator in the Alaska protected resources division in Juneau.

“I got a call that there was a dead fin whale on the bulbous bow of a cruise ship that was coming into port and that they were going to remove it with a tug from a tug company before it went into port,” said Wild, an assistant professor in applied fisheries at the University of Alaska Southeast.

Wild went out in her vessel, accompanied by Sitka High science teacher Stacy Golden and University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Willa Johnson.

“I came out to assist with photos and a sampling kit with my team,” she said, referring to Golden and Johnson. Wild said she and Golden, who frequently goes with her on calls about deceased whales, “came out to assist and help them find a beach to tow it to that we could do a necropsy on it and help secure the whale to shore.”

The whale was towed toward the beach, but sank about 30 to 40 feet offshore. Wild and her team secured the line to some trees on shore.

Wild hasn't had a chance to measure the whale yet, but estimated it to be at least 35 or 40 feet long.

“We can tell it’s male; we don’t know how long it is but it doesn’t look to be a full-size adult,” Wild said. “Just being near it, it looks like it might be a sub-adult male or a juvenile male.”

After the whale sank as it was towed to the beach, the tugboat, which couldn’t go all the way up to the beach had to transfer the line to a pilot boat, the biologist said.

“By the time they got it tied off to the pilot boat – the pilot boat tried to drive it into shore – the whale had sort of sunk, because it’s not neutrally buoyant yet,” she said.

Wild said she and others are trying to make a plan for either floating it or using a diver to take tissue from it, "then wait for it to naturally float, and then try to pull it up on the beach farther."

She and others did not want to reveal the location because NOAA is investigating, and biologists are also hoping to collect information.

"We would like for members of the public to give this animal space so that we can conduct a necropsy if it gets onto the beach, and because NOAA Office of Law Enforcement is still investigating," Wild said.

Golden added that it is illegal to harvest parts from the whale, since it is endangered.

Chris McGraw, manager of the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, said he was notified at 7:45 a.m. of a whale strike by the cruise line agency, requiring him to delay the port call by 2.5 hours.

After the whale was removed by the tug Banner, the Norwegian Joy made it in to the terminal and passengers were getting off the Norwegian Cruise line vessel as McGraw spoke to the Sentinel.

Fin whales are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. They are one of the largest animals on earth, second only to the blue whale. They average between 40 and 80 tons, can be up to 85 feet in length, and can live up to 90 years, an Alaska Public Media story states.

"We do not regularly see fin whales in Sitka Sound," Wild told the Sentinel. "They are very common out in the Gulf of Alaska, in deeper water offshore, but we do not typically see them inside the sound."

The cruise ship company hired the tug Banner to tow the whale to a nearby beach, she said. Biologists did not share the location, and did not get a good look at the whale because it was mostly underwater as it was being towed.

A NOAA spokeswoman told the Anchorage Daily News that the agency can't say at this time if the whale was killed by the strike or was already dead before the vessel encountered it.

In late June a pregnant dead fin whale was found attached to the bow of a cruise ship as it arrived in Seward. Following a necropsy, biologists announced the whale likely died of a cruise ship strike. The official cause of that whale's death is still pending further testing.

• Sentinel reporter Anna Laffrey contributed to this story, which originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.