KAHULUI, Maui — A medical examination of a young humpback whale that died after washing onto the shoreline at Puamana Monday found no obvious injuries or factors that might have caused the whale's death, a federal marine resources specialist said today, The Maui News reported.

"There were no obvious signs of the cause of death," said Nicole Davis, Marine Mammal Response Program coordinator on Maui. "She had injuries, but they did not appear to be fatal injuries."

While witnesses reported the young whale was attacked by sharks Monday as it was swimming just outside the surf break off Puamana, Davis said the whale already was on the beach when she was able to get to the scene and did not observe any sharks in the shallows.

She said the whale was a young calf estimated to be no more than a few weeks old, "born sometime in 2008, but not a newborn ... very young, definitely a new calf and it appeared it was a female."

It will take some time for laboratories on the Mainland to complete their analysis of the tissue samples taken from the whale in the effort to determine what caused its death.

"It can take several months, maybe longer and it may be close to a year before we get all of the results. And we may never know for sure what happened," she said.

For more on the death of the humpback calf, see Wednesday's Maui News.

For more Maui news, visit http://www.mauinews.com/default.aspx">The Maui News.