The sperm whale found dead off the coast in Northwest Oregon measured about 40 feet long.

1. Sperm whale deaths on Oregon Coast may be rare now, but 41 mysteriously beached near Florence in 1979

A dead sperm whale was found beached on Saturday near the Peter Iredale shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park.

Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the whale measured about 40 feet long, about the average size of an adult sperm whale.

Based on reports so far, he said, the whale is somewhat decomposed.

Milstein said a team from the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network was expected to do a necropsy on Monday, weather and tides permitting.

“We would like to access it and perform a necropsy to understand why it may have died and stranded, and what it may be able to tell us about the health of endangered sperm whales off the West Coast,” he said in an email.

Milstein said there are some gashes on the side of the whale, which could be signs of a ship strike or an entanglement.

The injuries are something officials will be looking more closely at during the necropsy, he added.

The last stock assessment by NOAA Fisheries put the West Coast population of sperm whales at about 1,270.

Milstein said sperm whales are less common off the Oregon Coast in the winter, which makes the incident somewhat unusual.

However, he said, the last six sperm whale strandings in Northwest Oregon and southwest Washington state have occurred in winter months.