Pathologists are now picking apart tissue samples to determine the cause of death of a massive sperm whale that washed ashore on a remote stretch of Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island's west coast last week.

The 14-metre-long male sperm whale apparently died just recently and was in relatively fresh shape - its flesh still red and its teeth ivory white - when discovered April 9, said John Ford, a marine mammal scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at the Pacific Biological Station.

"That's unusual, usually they are highly decomposed and have been floating out on the high seas for quite a while before they end up on beaches," Ford said.

That made the job of cutting into the mammal's very tough hide that much harder for a team of six biologists and mammal experts who conducted an necropsy Saturday.

"There's no obvious cause of death," Ford said. Samples were collected and taken back by Stephen Raverty, veterinarian pathologist at the Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford. A marine mammal expert, Raverty attends to most of the stranded whales and porpoises found in Canada.

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