ziphiidae_consultant's Identifications

Washed up in decayed state. Upper jaw broken. A calf (presumably the same species and probably belonging to this female individual) was found washed up and decomposing about 300m away on the same beach (third photo, with calf in the foreground and adult in the background).

Fedutin, Ivan & Meschersky, Ilya & Filatova, Olga & Titova, Olga & Bobyr, I. & Burdin, Alexander & Hoyt, Erich. (2020). Records of a New Cetacean Species of the Genus Berardius from Russian Waters. Russian Journal of Marine Biology. 46. 199-206. 10.1134/S1063074020030050.

"The individual from the Sea of Okhotsk coast of Kunashir Island that was found by the staff of the
Kurilskiy State Nature Reserve in May 2015 turned out to be a black beaked whale (sample Bsp1505, the sequence is identical to haplotype b1, according to [9]). This was an adult male (Fig. 2) whose body length from the rostrum tip to the fluke notch was 7.11 m".

Three individuals. Smaller than a minke whale and bigger than a dolphin, guesstimate a length of 6-7 meters. Small blow going forward at 45 degree angle to the surface. Approached the bow of the vessel and went past us heading south. Observed from deck 7 at 13 meters above sea level.

The largest was 9-10m long and they had a kind of slanted "bushy" blow. The gray skin was quite scarred. Large melon and beak. They had a small, shallow, triangular dorsal fin. It's very unusal to see them in such shallow water.