Dear all,

A carcass of a fin whale found beached on the Gulf of Sirte on the 18^th of February. The carcass was reported by one of the locals and scientists from different agencies and universities rushed to the site on the same date.

The animal was 17 m and heavily decayed. The body was inspected for any signs of collision (propellers marks or wounds) or mortality cause with no visible results. No necropsy was carried out and the body was buried at the site in order to extract the skeleton later. Tissue, blubber and skin samples were collected and preserved (frozen) at the University of Omar Elmukhtar (OMU) for later investigation and analysis.

Short videos are available at these links (u-tube):

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=%D8%AD%D9%88%D8%AA+%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AA&aq=f

Kind regards

Ibrahim Benamer

MSc Marine fisheries Management

University of Aberdeen

Lecturer at University of Omar Elmokhtar (OMU) / Libya

Email: benamr_ibrahim@yahoo.com