The cause of death of a 15-ton juvenile humpback whale that washed ashore at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park on Christmas Day could not definitively be determined by a partial necropsy done on the beach before it was buried at the park Dec. 28.
The 32–foot marine mammal, the first whale to have washed ashore in Barnegat Light in recent memory, attracted a throng of onlookers over the holiday weekend, to the point that it had to be roped off by crime scene tape Sunday, Dec.
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