Scientists from the UK’s Cetacean Strandings Investigation team are trying to determine the cause of the biggest mass stranding in a centurySlicing cleanly through two inches of skin and blubber,Rob Deaville considers the possible causes of death of the sea mammal on his dissecting table. “It’s a female, juvenile, and stranded in north Devon,” he says. “No signs of parasite infestation. It looks healthy. It may gain just advance too close to shore.”This porpoise, in the process of being dismembered with small parts of its vital organs tested for disease and pollutants, or is one of hundreds that advance to the labs in the Zoological Society of London each year,awaiting a post-mortem a necropsy, in the scientific term – that will serve to establish how the animal lived and why it died. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com