Another dead whale has washed ashore at Asanta in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region last Tuesday night.

This brings the total of dead whales washed ashore within a 30-day period to six, and 17 since 2009, according to "Friends of the Nation", a social and environmental group.

Breaking news of the latest incident, the group said the spate of the dying whales "is an indication that something wrong is happening in the marine environment [that] needs to be investigated."

There is strong suspicion that oil exploration activities in the Western Region could be the cause of the death of the whales.

But after the fifth whale was washed ashore in Nkontompo in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis, also in the Western Region - again on a Tuesday night - the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, the Fisheries Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explained that the washing ashore of dead whales could be due to some other cause than the oil and gas exploration.

However, "Friends the Nation" said in a press statement that the dismissal of a possibility of the impact of offshore petroleum activities as a cause of the whale deaths by the government agencies, without any empirical evidence, is wrong.

They have called on the EPA, Fisheries Commission, Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and relevant bodies to conduct thorough investigations to ascertain the cause of death of the whales.

They believe in the interim, the EPA must "revise the Guidelines of Oil & Gas operations and include the requirement of at least a Preliminary Environmental Assessment for all offshore seismic exploration surveys."