Stranded whales are quite rare on Bangladeshi seacoast, as the water is too shallow for them to roam about. But apparently a strong high tide washed ashore this brownish grey water mammal.

The 9-metre-long mutilated corpse was lying on its side, exposing its jaws and the ventral plates running down from the chin to a white-yellowish belly partly covered by a swarm of flies.

Operators of the Guide Tours Limited that takes tourists on package trips spotted the dead whale on December 22. The half-buried remains are still rotting on the shore.

Its trademark tail and the fins were cut off, and the body bore a gash under one of its pectoral fins caused by a rope.

Rubaiyat Mansur of the Guide Tours, who took part in a whale survey in the Bay of Bengal back in February, guessed, "The whale probably got stuck in a fishing net and drowned. It seems, its pectoral fins had been cut off to release the animal."

About the missing tail fin, Rubaiyat had something else to say, "We have heard of a fisherman in Bagherat who is offering to sell a whale's tail fin for 10,000 taka."

Without the tail and the fins, it was hard to pinpoint what kind of a whale it is. However, Rubaiyat surmised it might be a Bryde's Whale. "But the coloration under the lower jaw is not supposed to be black, it should be white," he added.

The colour of the carcass most likely has changed, as it died quite sometime ago. For an accurate identification, the skeleton has to be measured or a DNA test done.

Most of the 80-plus known species of whales show up in the list of endangered species. Scientists still know very little about the whales' ways of living and the impact of human activities on them. It is one of the reasons why a group of environmental organisations launched a worldwide survey of whales two years ago.

The first such survey in the Bay took place in February last, jointly sponsored by Wildlife Conservation Society, Convention on Migratory Species and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

The surveyors spotted a few species of whales, including the Bryde's, of the family known as Rorquals in a deep-sea canyon called Swatch-of-no-Ground in the western part of Bangladesh's Bay of Bengal, Rubaiyat said. They had to abandon their plan to conduct further surveys in the western part of the Bay, as India refused them the permission, he added.

Although the Bay of Bengal is not known as a whale migration route, the latest research reveals that the earth's biggest mammal does pass by this region. But increased human activities in the Bay are now posing threats to this giant.

The 2002 report of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on dolphins and whales says: Synthetic offshore fishing net, as the stranded whale demonstrates, will directly lead to the mammal's death. Indirectly, the extensive industrial fishery will harm the ocean giants, as it yearly extracts tonnes of non-target species, which are -- afterwards -- missing in the food chain.

The pollution, both environmental and acoustic, will affect the whale's health, reproductive abilities and sense of orientation. This, again, may lead to the ocean mammals' stranding.