Beluga found up-river near Fairbanks, Alaska

Scientists are baffled by the rotting carcass of a young beluga whale, which was found found in a river in central Alaska, reports the Anchorage Daily News.

The first guess is the beluga swam away from the ocean in search of food.

“What are the alternatives?” Link Olson, curator of the University of Alaska Museum of the North, told the Anchorage Daily News.

It was highly unlikely that someone was perpetrating a hoax along a remote section of river with a whale carcass, he said.

“If you were ever close to a dead marine mammal, even for a few hours, you would know why no one in their right mind would do that.”

Canoeists found the whale June 9 on the Tanana River about 70 kilometres southwest of Fairbanks.

Sylvia Brunner, a marine mammals researcher at the museum in Fairbanks, identified the decomposing carcass.

The “bloated, black thing on the beach” was about three metres from the river’s edge, she told the ADN.

It could have died in the river last fall and frozen during the winter, Brunner said. On the other hand, the whale could have entered the river this spring seeking fish before heading for the ocean.