Curious beachgoers examine the carcass.

Curious beachgoers examine the carcass.

Whale calf washes ashore at Salmon Bay

The carcass of a young whale, possibly a humpback, washed ashore at Salmon Bay on Tuesday, with beachgoers looking on at the scene of the removal of the carcass by municipal staff on Wednesday morning.

While the cause of the death is yet to be determined, this is the second whale to wash up dead this week.

Efforts to collect the carcass proved difficult, with a tractor later being called in to assist.

The at Richards Bay.

The humpback calf was said to have suffered fatal injuries before washing ashore however, the cause of its death had yet to be determined as well.

In both cases, the carcasses of the whales at Salmon Bay and Richards Bay were hacked into overnight, supposedly for use in traditional medicine (muthi).

On August 19 last month another whale carcass washed ashore at Umhlanga, seeing to the temporary closure of the beach.

A TLB was used to remove the whale carcass from Salmon Bay, and take it to the Dolphin Coast Land Management landfill site at KwaDukuza. It was unclear whether organs had been harvested for a post-mortem to be conducted in order to determine the cause of death.

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