TWO WHALES have died after being washed up on the rocky shoreline near Fife.
The coastguard was alerted around midnight on Monday to a report of two whales beached on the shore in Culross, Fife.
The northern bottlenose whales are understood to be rare visitors to the North Sea.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said one of the animals died around 6am on Wednesday and the other was in shallow water until just before 2pm when it was pronounced dead.
The South Queensferry coastguard rescue team was assisting.
A spokesperson for the coastguard said: "South Queensferry Coastguard Rescue Team is supporting the response to two whales washed up on the coast near Culross, Fife, last night (Tuesday July, 25).
"The alarm was raised at about 11.35pm and British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) has been involved on the scene."
The deaths comes just a couple of weeks after an entire pod of 55 pilot whales died following a mass stranding on a Western Isles beach.
In 2021 a young minke whale that became separated from its mother was killed humanely on the beach at Dalgety Bay after a six-hour rescue mission ultimately failed.
In autumn 2020, rescuers, including BDMLR, the Ministry of Defence and local volunteers, attempted to shepherd a pod of northern bottlenose whales to sea from Loch Long, Argyll, ahead of a major military exercise.
And back in 2018 four whales died after being found stranded at Torryburn.
