29-foot-long humpback whale found dead on South Carolina 'met some trauma' before death

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A juvenile humpback whale was found dead on a beach in South Carolina with signs of trauma.

Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network, a nonprofit working towards the protection of South Carolina's marine mammals, in a post on Facebook, Sunday said its team "responded to a juvenile humpback whale that stranded (dead) on Bird Island" last week.

The organization then coordinated with the stranding program in North Carolina to transport the approximately 29-foot male humpback to Sunset Beach, North Carolina, about 100 miles north of Bird Island, for the necropsy.

"Although tests and samples will take months to finalize, we suspect this animal met some trauma prior to death," the organization said. It did not specify what kind of trauma may have impacted the animal and led to its death. Paste BN has reached out for more information.

The whale was later buried at Sunset Beach in North Carolina since it was unable to be towed back to the ocean due to shallow water, Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network Executive Director Lauren Rust told Paste BN.

Humpback whales in South Carolina

Humpback whales are protected species under U.S. law and are found in waters across the country including Alaska, mid-Atlantic, Pacific Islands, and West Coast among other areas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The marine mammal, which gets its name from the distinctive hump on its back, is a favorite of whale watchers as they are often active, jumping out of the water and slapping the surface with their pectoral fins or tails.

Humpback whales can travel great distances during their seasonal migration with some animals migrating 5,000 miles between high-latitude summer feeding grounds and winter mating and calving areas in tropical waters, NOAA Fisheries says, adding their feeding grounds are generally in cold, productive waters. Rust said humpbacks are common during this time of the year as they "migrate off our coast in the fall and spring."

Threats to humpback whale populations include entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes and vessel-based harassment and ocean noise.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for Paste BN. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.