NYC police retrieve dead whale's body

The whale probably would have died anyway (I'm guessing here), but I am remembering an article that quoted Pierre Beland who has worked for years with belugas, specifically those in the St. Lawrence River. He was very angry that U.S. officials did an incomplete necroscopy on 24 bottle-nosed dolphins that died on the U.S. east coast. The report said they died of a parasitic infection, but they never checked for levels of pollutants in the blood and tissues. He believed that the dolphins would not have been infected with the parasites (or bacteria) to the extent that they would have died if their immune systems had not be comprimised by the pollutants. Young mammals are expecially vulnerable because the toxins accumulate in the fat and they get an extremely high dose when they are nursing.The other possibility is that the whale injested plastic debris.