Kaliayu fishermen bury two stranded whales
The Jakarta Post 21 Feb 09;
Fishermen and local villagers in Kaliayu village, Central Java, buried two whale carcasses on Saturday after failing at an attempt to push back the stranded sea creatures to sea.
Khumaedi, a local veterinarian, said the two whales were stranded alive at a beach near the village since Friday morning.
“The villages tried from afternoon until night time to push the whales back to sea. It didn’t work because the whales were too heavy. Finally, on Saturday morning the two whales died. At noon, the villagers buried the whales together near where they were found,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.
Khumaedi explained the size of whales were almost identical, about 6.4 meters in length and weigh 1,500 kilograms each, he said.
“The weigh, however, might be slightly different as one of the whales was a female, which usually bigger than males,” he said.
When asked whether the recent bad weather had anything to do with the whales being stranded, Khumaedi said the case was unlikely.
“There’s a small chance that it was caused by the bad weather because in the last two to three days the sea waves had returned to its normal level. The fishermen have also sailed to sea,” he said.
Instead, he speculated that a natural disaster had occurred within the sea.
