Dead Whale Washes Ashore At Point Reyes National Seashore

MARIN COUNTY, CA – A dead whale washed ashore at Point Reyes National Seashore on Christmas Eve, according to the Marine Mammal Center.

A team from the California Academy of Sciences went out to examine the whale, which is thought to be a male humpback around 30 feet long, on Christmas Day, a center spokeswoman said.

A larger team from the Marine Mammal Center and the Academy is going out again Tuesday to conduct a necropsy, in an effort to determine what killed the whale.

"The opportunity to perform a necropsy on a carcass in good condition like this will help contribute to our baseline data on the species," Barbie Halaska, research assistant at The Marine Mammal Center, said in a statement. "Based on the evidence collected during the necropsy, our team is able to rule out the possibility of a ship strike and plans to send the skin and muscle tissue for further testing to try to determine the animal’s cause of death."

A full necropsy report will be available within two weeks, according to the center.

By City News Service; Kristina Houck/Patch contributed to this report.

Photo: A close-up view of a stranded juvenile male humpback whale at North Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore on Tuesday, December 26, 2017. Credit: The Marine Mammal Center