Sligo County Council says it is still "reviewing all options" in relation to the future of the 14 metre sperm whale which died some hours after it beached in Ballisodare Bay two days ago.
To the surprise of scientists studying the mammal, it has been confirmed as female. The tides caused the whale, which was lying on a sandbank off Culleenamore at the back of Strandhill, to roll over and reveal its genital organs during Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
Precise cause of death is still not known, but tissue samples were taken at low tide for the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group by the National Parks and Wildlife Service yesterday.
The service's district officer, Tim Roderick told The Irish Times it was thought to be a male initially because of its size. "To see a female of this size and in these waters is quite unusual, as we tend to get the males up this far," he said.
The bow-headed mammal may have been 40 to 50 years old, and its flesh shows no external signs of damage by a ship or marine equipment. The animal was "slightly emaciated", Mr Roderick said, when it got caught on unusually low spring tides on Tuesday morning and found itself trapped in the area about half-a-mile offshore.
Sligo County Council is maintaining its exclusion zone around the corpse, given that the area is renowned for dangerous currents which have claimed the lives of swimmers in the past.
It is also monitoring the situation to ensure that no illegal samples are taken. Body parts, including a "spectacular lower jaw", are protected under the international CITES convention to protect endangered species, and the local authority has been warned of an illegal trade in sperm whale teeth.
Sharon Eastwood, Sligo County Council environmental officer, said the local authority was in negotiation with the wildlife service to preserve the whale's jaw for the new Sligo museum due to open in two years.
The Commissioners of Irish Lights vessel, Granuaile, and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have both offered to help the local authority - which has assumed responsibility for the whale, although it is below the low water mark.
Two channels some three metres deep on each side of the sandbank make it too risky for JCBs to approach.
"Even if we were to wait for a high tide to take it out, it would only become a danger to navigation and someone else's problem," Ms Eastwood said. "It could also become a public health issue. However, should it be washed inshore, there would be an option to bury it," she said.
Sperm whales, which have the largest brains on earth, are also known for their large tail flukes and angled spouts. Rarely seen, they are known to frequent the deeper waters off this coastline.
There are various theories for the cause of whale beaching, including a failure of their echolocation systems, pursuit of prey or pursuit by predators, magnetic anomalies and the impact of military activity and of offshore mineral exploration.
