“It’s a youngster, five meters long and weighing around two tons.” At around 10 o’clock on the morning of Sunday November 10, the mayor of Réville (Manche), Yves Asseline, was told by the fire department that a humpback whale had washed ashore in his commune, reports France Bleu Cotentin. “We’ve had dolphins washed up on our shores, seals, but to my knowledge never a whale.”he marveled.

The Préfecture de la Manche and the Office de la biodiversité were quickly alerted, and a cordon was set up to prevent onlookers from approaching the marine animal. Monitored in real time, the mammal threatened to explode as it was “full of gas”.says France Bleu. The mayor went on to say that the whale had been “towed”. in a truck by the gendarmes and then transported to“be studied”.

For the moment, the reasons for the mammal’s death are not known. “Analyses to be carried out”said Gérard Mauger, president of the Cotentin cetacean study group, adding that “humpback whale numbers have been increasing over the past forty years, after being severely decimated by hunting. They migrate to tropical waters in winter to give birth, and it is during this migration that they can pass close to our coasts”.