Sanctuary Team Investigating Blue Whale’s Cause of Death

The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary sent a necropsy team to San Miguel Island on Tuesday to try to determine what caused the death of an adult blue whale that was discovered washed up on the beach on Monday.

Since whales rarely wash up on beaches after dying, and because there is a worldwide moratorium on hunting blue whales commercially, this discovery presents a rare opportunity for scientific study.

“It’s a unique opportunity in the sense that it doesn’t happen every day,” said Edward Cassano, sanctuary manager. “The necropsy team is en route, and we don’t know anything yet. All we know is that a dive boat found it, and that it’s fairly new. It has probably been there only a couple of days.”

Cassano said his staff is also concerned about the recent discovery of decomposed carcasses of four common dolphins at San Miguel Island, and that a team was also dispatched to investigate cause of death. He wouldn’t speculate about a possible connection between the death of the whale and the dolphins.

“Right now we’re assuming that we’re dealing with a natural event,” Cassano said. “But we’re going to do our best to determine exactly what happened.”