Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network are currently at Fistral beach in Newquay, investigating a stranded fin whale – the second largest mammal in the world.

The whale was reported at 7am this morning, having been stranded on the early morning high tide, and was dead when discovered.

It is not currently known whether the animal had already passed before the stranding occurred.

Reports of a fin whale sighting off Pentire Headland were received yesterday (14th of November) and it is believed to be the same whale. The animal is 16.5 metres long.

There are one to two sightings of fin whales reported each year, with zero strandings being reported in 2022. Earlier in the year, a fin whale was stranded on Cornwall's south coast.

Anthea Hawtrey-Collier, Project Officer for the Marine Strandings Network said: “The whale is in a really poor nutritional state so it’s obviously not a well animal.

"We are currently waiting for permission from the Council to be processed before we can start a post mortem.

“When whales like this die and strand on our beaches it’s a really good way to gather information about these animals and to understand more about the health of our seas."

There are currently a large team of people at Fistral beach, all working together to understand the death of this animal, including Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network and the Cornwall Marine Pathology Team from the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), Devon and Cornwall Police, the RNLI and Coastguard.

The whale is now cordoned off from public view and members of the public are advised not to visit. 

Members of the public are urged to report all dead animals found along Cornwall’s coastline to the Trust’s 24-hour strandings hotline on 0345 2012626.

All live stranded animals in need of rescue can be reported to BDMLR’s rescue hotline on 01825 765526.