This was among the initial findings based on the necropsy conducted by David Schofield, regional stranding response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Kristie West, a cetacean scientist and professor at the Hawaii Pacific University, and other members of the team.
During a presentation at American Memorial Park Visitor Center Theater on Friday night, Schofield said they had taken four coolers of samples from the whale and these will be sent to laboratories in Hawaii and across the country.
“Hopefully we can get results in six months to one year,” Schofield said.
Schofield, who has over 20 years experience in animal stranding, said upon visual examination of the whale, they found that “the kidneys were in very bad shape. There was a cyst about the size of a golf ball with the consistency of a hard-boiled egg.”
He said the whale’s intestines also displayed an abnormal greenish-bluish color, not the usual pinkish color.
“We are…looking at the possibility of toxicity because we saw a piece of plastic in the whale’s stomach which could be part of a toy or marine debris that man has put into the ocean,” Schofield said.
“A lot of things were wrong with the whale, and hopefully when we get the results, it can help us a lot in saving other whales in the future.”
The whale weighed about 2,300 lbs and was euthanized on Wednesday afternoon. It was the second whale that beached itself on Saipan in two days.
“This is alarming, but I hope this is not the beginning to something like a mass stranding, but it could be,” Schofield said.
