A fisherman in Pingtan county caught a minke whale on the morning of Jan 13, local media reported.

The six meter long whale was dead when Liu Yongyue hauled up the net in waters off Qingfeng Village in Baiqing township at around 5 pm.

“It was so big that it took five or six of us to retrieve it onto the boat,” he said.

Liu reported the rare harvest to local fisheries authorities who later decided to transfer the whale to a marine research institute in Xiamen city.

An expert concluded that the whale may have got entangled in the net by accident, which resulted in its death because it couldn’t get out of the sea to breathe.

The whale will be made into a specimen and displayed at the Institute, sources said.

A local fisherman catches a six meter long minke whale in waters off Pingtan county, Fujian province, Jan 13. [Photo/pingtan.gov.cn]