MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fin whale wedged to the bow of cruise ship in Canada

Sapphire Princess docked at Vancouver with the unexpected catch (CP)

A rare whale was discovered wedged on to the bow of a cruise ship when it docked in a Canadian port Saturday morning. The 21 metres fin whale, a threatened species in Canada, was found when the Sapphire Princess docked at the Port of Vancouver, the cruise company said.

It said it had “strict whale avoidance” measures and it was unclear where, when or how the whale became stuck.

Tourists looked on as the dead whale was examined by fisheries department staff.

The cruise ship had arrived from Alaska about 0630 local time on Saturday.

“We are not aware that any whales were sighted as the ship sailed through the Inside Passage to Vancouver,” Princess Cruises said.

The whale was on top of the bulbous bow, the part of the bow that goes through the water, Princess Cruises said.

Its whale avoidance measures include altering course and reducing speed if whales are spotted nearby.

The captain was unaware of the whale's presence until the ship docked, said a spokeswoman from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans quoted by the Vancouver Sun.

The whale could have been struck north of Vancouver Island since fin whales are not normally found in the Johnstone or Georgia straits, Lisa Spaven added.

She also said “vessel strikes are a very real threat to fin whales” but were hard to quantify as incidents often went unreported.

The fisheries department will need to conduct a post-mortem examination to find out if the whale was dead or alive before the collision.

According to the Vancouver Star, two tugboats were hired by the fisheries department to nudge the 70 tons whale from the bow. It was then moved to a barge.

A team of forensic pathologists will study the corpse and once the necropsy is complete, the animal will be returned to the ocean.

“These animals, the carcasses are extremely important in terms of the ecosystem of shore, in terms of the continental shelf. They're really islands of life, so we're going to take the animal out quite a ways offshore and deposit the carcass where it should be,” said Paul Cottrell, the marine mammal co-ordinator for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Ten years ago another cruise ship arrived at the same port with a whale on the bow, the newspaper said.