A dead 57-foot-long fin whale was pulled from the bulbous bow of the cruise ship Norwegian Joy on Sept. 17 as the ship made its way toward the terminal for its port call in Sitka.

The whale was removed from the bow and towed by a tug boat hired by the cruise company to a beach near town. The incident delayed the arrival of the cruise ship into port.

Lauren Wild, Sitka area stranding coordinator for NOAA Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network, said she was notified of the situation at 8:20 a.m. by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement, and five minutes later informed by the NOAA Marine Mammal Stranding coordinator in the Alaska protected resources division in Juneau.

Wild went out in her vessel, accompanied by Sitka High science teacher Stacy Golden and University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Willa Johnson.

“I came out to assist with photos and a sampling kit with my team,” she said, referring to Golden and Johnson. Wild said she and Golden, who frequently goes with her on calls about deceased whales, “came out to assist and help them find a beach to tow it to that we could do a necropsy on it and help secure the whale to shore.”

The whale was towed toward the beach, but sank about 30 to 40 feet offshore. Wild and her team secured the line to some trees on shore.

“We can tell it’s male; we don’t know how long it is but it doesn’t look to be a full-size adult,” Wild said. “Just being near it, it looks like it might be a sub-adult male or a juvenile male.”

Wild said she and others are trying to make a plan for either floating it or using a diver to take tissue from it, “then wait for it to naturally float, and then try to pull it up on the beach farther.”

She and others did not want to reveal the location because NOAA is investigating, and biologists are also hoping to collect information.

“We would like for members of the public to give this animal space so that we can conduct a necropsy if it gets onto the beach, and because NOAA Office of Law Enforcement is still investigating,” Wild said.

Fin whales are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. They are one of the largest animals on earth, second only to the blue whale. They average between 40 and 80 tons, can be up to 85 feet in length, and can live up to 90 years, an Alaska Public Media story states.

“We do not regularly see fin whales in Sitka Sound,” Wild told the Sitka Sentinel. “They are very common out in the Gulf of Alaska, in deeper water offshore, but we do not typically see them inside the sound.”

A NOAA spokeswoman told the Anchorage Daily News that the agency can’t say at this time if the whale was killed by the strike or was already dead before the vessel encountered it.

In late June a pregnant dead fin whale was found attached to the bow of a cruise ship as it arrived in Seward. Following a necropsy, biologists announced the whale likely died of a cruise ship strike. The official cause of that whale’s death is still pending further testing.

Daily Sitka Sentinel reporter Anna Laffrey contributed to this story.