One of the right whales that was examined several years ago, in the year when 12 right whales died over two years, I think had lived for 40 years and had evidence of numerous ship strikes. I'm wondering why, in some cases, the necropsy shows ship strikes that didn't kill them and supposedly, somehow, further determination is that ship strikes did kill them. They also do follow their food path up into the Labrador Strait. They do get frozen in the ice when they can't surface.
How do you determine, when a whale dies, whether it was one that already had multiple collisions or one that had basically died by being frozen into the ice?