Chad Gillis

The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

4 pilot whales died%2C 4 others had to be euthanized after beaching themselves at state park

Healthy females can weigh almost 3%2C000 pounds%2C males 5%2C000 pounds

Their preferred food is squid%3B biologists say whale they examined hadn%27t eaten in days

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — Kane Rigney pounded a flathead screwdriver through the skull of a short-finned pilot whale that had been euthanized Tuesday.

"It's amazing how big their brains are," the marine biologist said while examining the massive head of a 1,000-pound female. "Take a look at this blood vessel. It's enormous."

A crew of seven biologists and a handful of volunteers at the Marine Mammal Pathology Laboratory in St. Petersburg, Fla., spent Wednesday afternoon at Lovers Key State Park here dissecting and examining one of eight short-finned pilot whales that died or were euthanized in the area since a beaching Monday. The six remaining whale carcasses were left at Lovers Key for onsite necropsies, which were closed to the public and media, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

They didn't find any obvious answer to the causes of death for the whales, which were part of a group of 14. The whereabouts of the remaining six are unknown. Samples from the necropsies were sent to pathology labs although answers from those tests may not be known for months, lab director Andy Garrett said.

"We didn't see a massive infection or anything," Garrett said, adding that he understands why the public wants to know what killed these whales. "We want to know, too, but with all the samples and the work we've done, we may never know."

Samples were taken from skin lesions, fins, organs such as the liver and heart as well as the blubber and entrails. The blubber can show trace signs of contamination from chemicals or Karenia brevis, the organism that causes red tide in this region.

Skin was flaking off the right side of one of the whales just below the dorsal fin as the carcass degraded. Biologists worked quickly as the carcass was decomposing in front of them.

The whales were underweight and their bodies were metabolizing blubber as an energy source, a sign that the whales hadn't eaten in several days, Garrett said.

"It hadn't eaten in a while," he said of the whale examined Tuesday. "The whole GI system was empty."

Short-finned pilot whales eat mostly squid, which they catch after diving 100 feet or deeper in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

Garrett and his team found parasites in blubber and organ tissue. He said it's natural for animals to host parasites but that the frequency of those parasites goes up as an animal get sicker.

The biologists' laboratory is about the size of a volleyball court. Stainless steel examination tables, commercial cranes and various scalpels, knives and saws are used to process and examine the carcasses.

They also scan the animals for any type of identifying microchip. The remains not used for samples will be collected by a recycling business and turned into bio-diesel, fertilizer or cosmetics.

Thirty-seven whales have stranded or beached themselves in Lee and Collier counties in southwest Florida since Sunday, when a group of 23 short-finned pilot whales swam into Gordon Pass in Naples.

Kim Amendola with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries program said the whales that stranded Sunday in Naples were last seen Tuesday about two miles offshore. Pilots flew over the Lovers Key area Wednesday but did not see any signs of the six remaining whales from Monday's stranding.