Traumatized killer whale washes up in Washington state

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LONG BEACH, Wash. (NEWS1130) – Scientists are trying to figure out what killed a young killer whale that washed up on the Washington State coast on the weekend.

The three-year-old, known as L112, was found just north of Long Beach Saturday morning.

Cascadia Research Stranding Coordinator Jessie Huggins did the necropsy.

“We discovered severe trauma around the chest, the head and the right side and right now we’re not sure what caused the trauma,” Huggins said. “It didn’t look like a typical ship strike because we didn’t see any broken bones, but we didn’t get to examine the skull.”

L112 was often spotted with her pod off the coast of Vancouver Island. Huggins said she may have been in the Straight of Juan de Fuca recently.

There were reports of Naval sonar activity in the area in the past week and a half.

L112 is the second killer whale to be found dead in Washington State over the last three months.

“They are considered to be unrelated at this point because the other whale was a completely different ecotype,” Huggins said.

“It’s probably an artifact of it being winter time and big waters tend to bring in a lot more whales than we typically see. Plus, [the first] whale was a newborn calf and it had a congenital defect that made it pretty much impossible for it to feed.”

The skeleton will be cleaned and examined at Portland State University.

Scientists will also be looking for other factors that may have contributed to L112’s death.

It could be several months before test results come back.

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