Scientists with the Marine Mammal Center performed a necropsy on a 44-foot, female gray whale Wednesday on Angel Island.
The carcass was initially spotted last Friday, floating in the waters near the shoreline south of the Bay Bridge, and it eventually washed ashore Saturday near Oakland International Airport before getting towed to Angel Island for further examination.
Scientists with the Marine Mammal Center deployed to investigate the carcass, finding that it had suffered blunt force trauma and hemorrhaging to the left side of its body as well as multiple skull fractures.
They believe the whale was struck by a vessel of some kind.
Center officials gathered tissue samples for research purposes, and scientists with the California Academy of Sciences took the whale’s hip bones for their archives.
This is the third gray whale carcass examined by the Marine Mammal Center so far in 2018. They say that blunt force trauma from boats, malnutrition and entanglement in rope or fishing lines are the leading causes of death.
Gray whales are the most commonly sighted whales on the California coast. This time of year they’re headed north toward Alaska.
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