Why Did This Whale Turn up Dead in San Francisco?

We heard that a whale had been found dead three hours north of where we were staying. Joy arrives to join a big team that's gathering. When dead whales turn up in San Francisco, they're towed to this uninhabited island. The remains of other dead whales litter the shores. First priority is, why did this animal die? If we don't know why it died, we can't do anything about it, we can't stop it. If we lose those opportunities, then we may lose the species, because we will have missed the warning signs. The red flags are all there, but we have to find them. So it's a crime scene first. We've got to understand why the whale died. Once that's established, the next order of business is scientific collection. This is the saddest part of all, because it's a female, and a fairly young female. Fin whales are an endangered species. This young female would have had many years of life and many calves ahead of her. A big team has gathered to do a thorough necropsy. It will take many hours in the hot sun to find out what killed her. Joy has a suspicion that something big hit this whale, and she's looking for proof. The layer underneath that muscle should look like this, should be kind of white-ish yellow. This is not normal. That's a bruise, and bruising would indicate that it was bleeding, and bleeding indicates it was alive when it was struck. And if you look over here, that's rust from the boat. That is probably the site of the main impact, right here. Joy needs more evidence to prove it was a ship, so the team dig deeper. Finally, the team expose the spine, but it's not all where it should be. But this one's been pushed out of position, so much so that it's up against the rib. Should be in the middle of the whale. It shouldn't be up against the rib. This is crazy. That's a massive amount of pressure, and it also means that the whale was really snapped in half. You just don't think of whales as things that snap. They shouldn't. What would normally hit a whale that hard? There's nothing bigger than a whale in nature, and then comes along a ship. There's no way to handle that. I don't think this was done on purpose. It's more that I'm sad. I'm sad that it happens. I'm angry that we haven't been able to do something about it to stop it. And a tragedy, more than anything else. It's a tragedy. The necropsy complete. The remains of the whale are left for scavengers, and Joy and the team head home.