River Thames whale: Autopsy carried out on stranded minke
- Published
An autopsy is being carried out on the juvenile minke whale which had to be put down after becoming stranded in the River Thames in London.
The whale was rescued after getting stuck in Richmond Lock on Sunday, but escaped and was later beached against a river wall in Teddington.
It was put down on Monday shortly after 18:00 BST after vets found its condition was "rapidly deteriorating".
The autopsy is being carried out at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
The minke, which measured between 3m (10ft) and 4m (13ft), was first spotted near Barnes Bridge on Sunday and later became stranded on Richmond Lock's boat rollers.
RNLI teams managed to move it but the mammal escaped and was seen swimming between Richmond and Teddington on Monday morning before becoming stuck.
A vet from the ZSL administered the injection to put it down when it became stranded on the embankment.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said the autopsy would be carried out by a team from the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, based at ZSL.
"This will hopefully reveal more as to why this young whale came to be in poor condition and lost in the river," the group said.
Minke whales are the smallest of the great whales, growing to about 33ft (10m), and are usually found throughout the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Their range extends from the ice edge in the Arctic during the summer to near the equator during winter.
On Monday Dan Jarvis, from BDMLR, said whales normally came ashore "for a very good reason".
"Sometimes it is by accident - they do get stranded - but usually, sadly, it is the case that they're already seriously ill or badly injured, and there's not a great deal we can do in that situation."