Whale Stranded in West Iceland

A sperm whale became stranded on Snæfellsnes. According to Skúli Alexanderson, a local resident, the whale is easy to get to and several passers-by have gone down to look at it. “You can go up to the whale and touch it. The high-tide may come in around it but it is located extremely high up above sea-level,” Skúli reported to mbl.is.

According to Gísli Víkinsson, whale expert at the Marine Research Institute, about 10 to15 whale strandings occur around Iceland every year and most often it is not known why they swim or drift up to the shore. “They can die from natural causes and then perhaps drift towards land,” says Gísli. The sperm whale that was discovered on Sunday is 12 to 15 meters long and according to Morgunblaðið’s correspondent in Hellissandur, the whale looks whole and has not started to rot. Gísli says that the sperm whale is more likely than larger whales to drift towards land because it floats better while larger whales tend to sink if they die in the sea. Read More