LAPUSH — A Baird’s beaked whale that washed up dead on the shore near La Push last week apparently was killed after it was struck by a ship.
“There was a blunt, massive trauma to the right side,” Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, said Sunday.
“The animal had multiple rib fractures. The stomach, liver and parts of the small intestine had herniated into the chest cavity.”
Raverty added that this is the fifth whale to have been killed by a ship off the West Coast in seven months.
The whale was discovered on Olympic National Park’s Second Beach by hikers Tuesday.
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