Experts say it may prove impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of death of a rare whale washed up on an Angus beach.
The 12.75m sei whale, discovered by a dog walker at Elliot, near Arbroath Golf Club on Friday morning, has now been buried after a Saturday postmortem carried out by a team from the marine stranding scheme at the Scottish Agricultural College in Inverness.
As hundreds of people visited the scene of the stranding, the SAC scientists completed a detailed autopsy on the carcase, looking for clues which might help solve the mystery surrounding the eventual death of the male baleen which had been spotted in difficulty off the coast of Fife last week.
There are early indications that the whale may have been thinner than would be expected, but that will be only one theory under scrutiny by the animal team and marine rescue experts following a series of incidents involving various species of whales around the coastal waters of Tayside and Fife in the past weeks.
Barry McGovern, co-ordinator of the Scottish strandings scheme, said the Angus incident was a highly unusual occurrence involving a species rarely reported in these waters.
”This whale was seen last week near St Andrews and was identifiable through two big notches on its dorsal fin,” he said.
”We had an inkling it was not going to do well and almost expected it to strand that day, but it was found here, which is really not too far away from where it was earlier sighted.
”When you get these large species stranding it tends to be junior males, not dependent on their mother but not yet sexually mature. With strandings it is very difficult to pinpoint the cause of death.”
The whale was buried in a deep pit dug into the beach, after contractors worked for hours to move the massive carcase.