NEW YORK (AP) – A baby whale that died in a remote backwater of New York Harbor was a female, experts said after an examination. But they remained unsure why the animal died.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say, ‘Okay, this is what happened,'” said Kim Durham, rescue program director for the Long Island-based Riverhead Foundation for Research and Preservation.

The whale’s belly had shown a number of bloody scratches, as though she had scraped herself on the bottom or underwater obstacles. But no signs of significant trauma were found during a seven-hour necropsy, researchers said Friday.

They planned to send tissue samples to pathologists for more tests.

The 12-foot-long minke whale was first spotted Tuesday in Gowanus Bay, a small estuary off industrial south Brooklyn. The animal swam aimlessly in the bay until Wednesday evening, when she died after suddenly thrashing in the water and attempting to beach herself on a pier at a Hess Oil Co. facility.

Ms. Durham estimated the whale was about a year old – still in the nursing stage and unable to survive without her mother.

Minke whales are a subspecies of baleen whales, common in northern Atlantic waters, and feed on plankton and krill.

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Information from: Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com