image credit : huffingtonpost.com
A blue whale that washed ashore in northern California was struck by a ship, experts believe. The female whale, 79 feet long, washed ashore Friday at Agate Beach in Bolilnas, about 13 miles north of San Francisco. Scientists from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences conducted a necropsy on site Saturday and took blood and tissue samples. The carcass had major blunt-force trauma along its left side.