LEWES, Del. — Marine scientists are investigating after a dead 32-foot whale washed ashore near Bethany Beach in Delaware.
The Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute (MERR), responded to the dead humpback whale on Jan. 8 after floating at sea for a couple of days.
According to marine scientists, its estimated that the whale weighed a minimum of 20,000 pounds. MERR's necropsy team will perform a post-mortem exam to determine the cause of death.
Preliminarily, they were able to determine the whale had a broken jaw and hemorrhaging.
"This type of blunt force injury is often associated with a large ship strike, and the nature of the wounds indicates that the whale was still alive when it was struck," MERR said in a Facebook post.
