Dolphin washes up on beach near Ventura County line (California, USA)

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/SUZY DEMETER A woman found a carcass Saturday morning as she was running along a beach near the Los Angeles/Ventura county line. Officials aren’t sure whether it was a whale or dolphin.

October 18^th, 2014 (Megan Diskin). Officials confirmed Sunday the carcass that washed up on a ­local ­beach was a Risso dolphin.

The dolphin was an adult Risso dolphin that was extremely decomposed, said Jim Milbury, a spokesman with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Risso dolphin are one of the largest dolphins and can weigh from 600 pounds to over 1000 pounds, Milbury said.

The dolphin was expected to be buried deep in the sand and to continue decomposing, Milbury said.

A woman who lives in the area of the beach near the Los Angeles/Ventura county line said she saw the dolphin, which at the time appeared to be a small whale, about 10 a.m. Saturday. She said she notified a ranger at nearby Leo Carrillo Beach after finding the 10-foot-long carcass as she was running along the beach just north of 41000 Pacific Coast Highway.

“It was pretty stinky and bloated,” she said.

The body of a 52-foot fin whale floated into port at Naval Base Ventura County Port Hueneme in July. NOAA officials conducted a necropsy and found the cause of death was most likely blunt-force trauma consistent with a ship strike.

According to NOAA, shipping lanes and migratory paths of blue, fin and humpback whales overlap in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. As a result, there is a risk of ship strikes to whales that can cause serious injury or death.

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