On 6 March 2016, on behalf of Filipa Samarra of the Icelandic Orca Project, I assisted with the necropsy of a killer whale that had stranded near to Kolgrafarfjörður on the west coast of Iceland on the 2 March. The whale was an adult female known to the Icelandic Orca Project as IS223 which had been regularly seen in recent years during the winter time in the Grundarfjörður/Kolgrafarfjörður area.
The necropsy was conducted by Dr. Gísli Víkingsson of the Marine Research Institute, assisted by myself. We collected body and blubber measurements and took samples from the kidney, liver, blubber, muscle, ovaries, blood and bone, which will be analysed to provide additional information on the whale including its health and pregnancies. No obvious cause of death could be ascertained on site.
Please visit the Icelandic Orca Project for more information.
