A young humpback whale has died on China's east coast in Jiangsu Province, after having been stranded on local beaches three times in three days.
The 3-ton whale was found dead on Wednesday, after it got stranded for a final time at the port of Lianxing in the city of Qidong, an employee at the port's police station told the Global Times.
"The first time the humpback was found stranded was on Monday near Yinyang township, and with our help, it made its way back into the ocean, then we found it again in the same place the very next day," said the employee in police station.
"Then it was spotted yet again on Wednesday morning," the employee said.
He added that the experts are still investigating the whale's death.
Xu Xinrong, of Nanjing Normal University's Life Sciences Institute, told the Xinhua News Agency that he had suspected the whale had a disease that had caused it to lose its ability to navigate.
Tang Jianhua of the Jiangsu marine research institute, joined the rescue Monday, but predicted that the whale would not survive because there were "many scars on its body, new and old."
Officials from the Lianxing Port tourism bureau said that they wanted to keep the humpback's body there and come up with a conservation site for whales, to make the public more aware of marine life, Xinhua reported.
They have already brought the idea and a plan up with authorities, according to news site thepaper.cn.
There are estimated to be around 60,000 humpback whales in the world's oceans, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
In China, the humpback whale is under second-tier protection by the Chinese government.
