A 62 foot dead fin whale was found floating in Cerritos Channel in Los Angeles harbor Friday morning. Coast Guard Station Los Angeles was on scene to assess the situation until members from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service arrived.
According to Lt. j.g. Stephanie Young, "Once the whale was reported, Coast Guard sent their Station Los Angeles asset out to monitor the whale to make sure that there weren't any commercial or recreational vessels that would be damaged by hitting the whale and to be sure there weren't any other marine mammals in the area that could be harmed."

The animal was towed to a pier on the Los Angeles side of Cerritos Channel. According to Jim Milbury, Spokesperson for NOAA, the cause of death "appeared to be a ship's strike." The whale was a mature adult of average size for fin whales and would weigh about 112,000 lbs. Although the Coast Guard is monitoring the situation, According to Young, the Coast Guard has not received any reports of a ship's strike or damaged ships. "The carcass was to be towed out to sea on Saturday and set adrift", said Milbury.

At this time of year, the gray whales are migrating north to Alaska from Baja California. The migration patterns of the fin whale are less well known, but according to Milbury, they are not uncommon off California.

Fin whales are found in nearly all the world's oceans, except for near the polar regions and in some more isolated bodies of water, like the Red Sea. Heavily hunted during the twentieth century, All populations worldwide remain listed as endangered species by the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the International Conservation Union. The fin whale is the second largest whale and the second largest living animal after the Blue Whale, growing to as large as 88 feet long.