A humpback whale It was found dead on Monday on the beach of São Conrado, a tourist region in the southern part of Janeiro Riverat a time when the sightings of the cetaceans multiply in the Brazilian coast.
The body, in advanced state of decomposition, He was sighted in the morning about 500 meters from the coast and reached the sands In the afternoon dragged by the currents.
The Fire Department isolated the area with alert flags to avoid the approach of curious and undue manipulations, while the Municipal Urban Cleaning Company (Comlurb) began the work for the removal of the body.
This event occurs in the middle of the southern winter, season in which humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to warm waters of Brazilespecially the state of Bahia (Northeast), to reproduce.
The presence of cetaceans is common in this time on the Carioca coast, but The number of sightings has multiplied in recent years.
In addition to a larger number of whales, threat cases also increased. In the last 15 days two whales were rescued from fishing networks in Ilhabela and Ubatuba, on the coast of the state of São Paulo.
According to the last census made by the Baleia Jubarte Institutethe town of humpback whales visited by the Brazilian coast multiplied almost 18 times in the last two decades, from about 1,400 copies in 2001, to 25,000 in 2022, which recovered the levels it had before commercial hunting made it a threatened species.
The increase in the population is a direct consequence of the end of the commercial hunting of whales thanks to the international moratorium agreed in 1986.
The humpbacks, who measure up to 16 meters and weigh up to 40 tons, travel annually from Antarctica, where they remain most of the year feeding with Krill, to tropical waters on the northeast coast of Brazil, where they reproduce.