A blue whale recently washed ashore just north of Port Hood, N.S., and investigators are trying to determine what killed it.

"At this stage, it's in a location that isn't really accessible and we wouldn't be able to conduct a necropsy on site," said Andrew Reid, a co-ordinator with the Marine Animal Response Society.

Blue whales are an endangered species. Reid told CBC News his organization first got word about the whale carcass on Sept. 18. Photos of the carcass were shared on its Facebook page on Monday.

Reid said the society is working with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and veterinary ecologists from the Atlantic Veterinary College in P.E.I. to look into potentially moving the carcass to another location for a necropsy.

Update Sept. 25, 2019: Fisheries and Oceans Canada said today it will not be able to conduct a necropsy due to the difficulty in relocating the whale to a more accessible location.

The blue whale is about 16.8 metres long, which indicates it was young. (Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

He said someone with the society was able to get down to see the whale up close and managed to conduct a preliminary documentation. That was crucial information to gather, Reid said, because whale bodies decompose quickly.

"External information is often lost, so it is important to have initial documentation done so any signs of human interaction could be documented," he said.

It's about an hour-long walk to get to the location of the whale, Reid said.

"There's no access point for a vehicle, so for an animal this size we really do need to have heavy equipment like an excavator," he said.

The whale is about 16.8 metres long, which Reid said indicates that it was young — "definitely not a mature whale."

Reid said blue whales washing ashore is a relatively rare occurrence. The last time he could remember it happening was in 2017 along the South Shore. In that instance, the cause of death appeared to be blunt-force trauma.

Reid said there are an estimated 250 adult blue whales in the North Atlantic, "so it is quite a rare species."

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