SAMUT PRAKAN: A Buddhist rite was held on Monday for the dead Bruda whale found washed aground in a mangrove forest at Bang Poo area in Muang district on Sunday.
Members of the Upper Gulf of Thailand Conservation Group and local residents on Monday morning hauled the carcass by boat from the mangrove swamp to an area behind Tessaban Bang Poo 2 School, about two kilometres away.
There, four monks from Wat Tamru performed rites for the dead whale.
In the afternoon, veterinarians, fishery experts and officials from the Marine and Coastal Resources Department autopsied the carcass to find the cause of death. The meat was fleshed from the skeleton and placed on a canvas sheet. The work was completed about 5pm.
Some of the flesh and the skeleton of the whale were then delivered by 10-wheel truck to the National Science Museum at Khlong 5 in Pathum Thani's Khlong Luang district, where the skeleton will later be put on display.
Veterinarian Sunantinee Poonsawat said the dead Bruda whale was female, about 11 metres long and weighed about 10 tonnes.
No injuries were found on the exterior. However, its second right rib bone was broken. There was a bruise on the right side of the chin area, probably from an impact before the whale died. The heart and the lungs had already rotted, she added.
Chalathip Chanchompoo, director of a marine and coastal resources research centre for the eastern coast of the gulf, said the whale's tissues would be examined to find whether its DNA matched that of the whales which inhabit the Gulf of Thailand, where the whale population is estimated at 50-strong.