Infection Killed Whale, Curator Says

Rocky, the minke whale who landed on a Newport Beach jetty Saturday, died of an infection he had probably been harboring for several weeks or months, Sea World’s curator of mammals, Tom Goff, said Monday.

A team of 10 scientists spent about four hours Monday afternoon dissecting the 1,300-pound whale, which was about five months old and died Sunday morning after dozens of volunteers and veterinarians tried to save it for 24 hours.

Experts from Sea World, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Southwest Fisheries and the Naval Ocean Systems Center studied the whale’s tissues and organs, and the museum took the animal’s remains for further review and possible exhibition.

“The animal was dying when it came in,” Goff said, noting that Rocky was about 20% to 25% underweight for his age. “Everything that I’ve read, and the people that I’ve talked to, indicate that (volunteers on the beach) really couldn’t have done much better. I think everything was done by the book.”

Goff said parasites found inside the 13 1/2-foot whale and on its skin, and cuts and bruises from a tumble on the rock jetty, did not contribute to the death. But it will be several weeks before the type of infection that killed Rocky is identified.

Scientists on Monday took tissue samples from Rocky’s muscle, blubber, kidneys and liver and examined each organ to make sure none was deformed or had suffered trauma. They also extracted bacterial cultures and samples for a toxicology test to determine whether the whale was poisoned by pesticide or other ocean contaminants.

“This was more than a basic necropsy . . . this was a learning opportunity. Not only why he was ill, but looking at the physiology and anatomy of this particular animal,” Goff said.

“Most of these whales that die in the ocean either sink to the bottom or are eaten by something else,” Goff said.

He said that in his 18 years studying mammals in Southern California, he had never seen a live minke whale beach itself.