Minke whale washed up on Flemish beach

A young minke whale, measuring 3.5 metres long and weighing about 400 kilos, washed up on the shore at Nieuwpoort, West Flanders, on Sunday. The animal was likely separated from its mother and stranded on the beach, where it died shortly thereafter. The whale drew a lot of attention from visitors to the beach, before it was removed and brought to the University of Ghent for research purposes. Minke whales are the most common baleen whales and there live about 8,500 of the mammals in the North Sea.