Trauma to harbour porpoise, Isle of Man, 18/02/09 Reply to message from Laura Hanley I think this is almost certainly a bycaught animal in which the tail has been cleanly amputated to free it from the net. This is reinforced by the apparent monofilament net mark encircling the front of the head. We've seen quite a number of similar cases here in Cornwall, including common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. I think it's extremely unlikely to be boat propeller damage, as you'd probably expect to see several cuts along the body and more damage from a prop that's big enough to cause such a huge, clean cut - and, of course, no encircling net marks. But your photos are a bit too small to zoom in on and have a better look. If you could possibly send them at full size, we could check the rest of the body for similar net marks and maybe give you a better opinion. Best wishes, Jan ---------------------------------- Jan Loveridge CWT Marine Strandings Network Strandings Hotline: 0845 201 2626 www.cwtstrandings.org ----- Original Message ----- From: <marmam-request@lists.uvic.ca> To: <marmam@lists.uvic.ca> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 5:15 PM Subject: MARMAM Digest, Vol 43, Issue 26

Send MARMAM mailing list submissions to marmam@lists.uvic.ca

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to marmam-request@lists.uvic.ca

You can reach the person managing the list at marmam-owner@lists.uvic.ca

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of MARMAM digest..."

Today's Topics:

1. A beached fin whale in Libya (Ibrahim Benamr) 2. Opinions sought: Harbour Porpoise: 18-02-09: Isle of Man (Hanley, Laura)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:49:25 -0800 (PST) From: Ibrahim Benamr <benamr_ibrahim@yahoo.com> Subject: [MARMAM] A beached fin whale in Libya To: marmam@lists.uvic.ca Message-ID: <366277.65206.qm@web33007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Dear all, ? A carcass of a fin whale found beached on the Gulf of Sirte on the 18th 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+... ? Kind regards ? Ibrahim Benamer MSc Marine fisheries Management University of Aberdeen ? Lecturer at University of Omar Elmokhtar (OMU) / Libya Email: benamr_ibrahim@yahoo.com