Cause of death of whale in New Jersey can’t be determined

TOMS RIVER, N.J. – A marine mammal rescue group says a 43-foot (13-meter) whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach was too badly decomposed to determine how it died.

The director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center says the whale that washed up Wednesday on a beach in Toms River had been dead for days and chewed on by sharks.

His group was only able to perform a limited necropsy on the 40-to-50-ton whale, which had to be hauled away from the beach because it was a health hazard.

The animal might have been a Sei whale, but its condition made even that determination difficult to make.

According to the World Wildlife Foundation, the Sei whale is one of the fastest whales, reaching speeds of up to 30 mph.