A dead Sperm Whale, Physeter macrocephalus, has been sighted on a sand bar in the Wash (an inlet of the North Sea separating the English counties of Norfolk and Lincolnshire). The Whale, which is about 1.6 km off the Norfolk coast, was first spotted on Monday 23 November 2020, by staff at the RSPB's Snettisham Reserve, but could not be located later the same day by a team from the Huntstanton Coastguard. However, it was spotted again on Tuesday 24 November, having apparently moved further to the west. The cause of the Animal's death is unclear, but it is thought to be a young male.
Sperm Whales are the largest species of Toothed Whales, reaching about 20.5 m in length. The species is currently considered to be Vulnerable under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, with a population that probably measures somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. The species is thought to have had a population of over a million around the beginning of the nineteenth century, but to have fallen to about 29 000 by 1880. The population rose again in the early twentieth century, as targeting of the species by Whalers declined, then fell from 1946 to 1980 as hunting of Sperm Whales increased again. Since 1985 the species has been protected by a moratorium on the taking of Whales agreed by the International Whaling Commission, and although a few Sperm Whales have been taken by the Japanese Whaling fleet since this time, the main threat to these animals is thought to come from Fishing nets, in which they can become entangled and drown, and plastics, which they can ingest, filling up their stomachs and preventing them from taking their normal food (mostly Squid).
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