News of whale carcasses showing up floating off of Kodiak Island in Alaska started flooding the media in mid-June. Scientists were also called to find the cause behind it but they were unable to reach to a conclusion.

The team working on the case said collecting samples from the whale carcasses proved to be problematic. At first there were 18 whales from two species, 10 fin whales and 8 Humpbacks.

They said Humpback whales were so badly decomposed that taking any usable sample from them was not possible. Samples that were collected from the fin were a week old.

Kate Wynne, a marine mammal specialist with the University of Alaska's Sea Grant Program said in a statement that discovery of these whales in such a bad condition was an unusual and mysterious event. Wynne noted that whale researchers rarely see more than one fin whale carcass every couple of years.

Wynne noted that because the samples taken from the fin whales were a week old they also may prove to be too far along in decomposition to provide an answer for the mass deaths.

Experts said that such a large number of whale die-off raise speculation that the creatures might have eaten something toxic which led to mass die-off. Fin whales and humpbacks are species that will feed within proximity of one another.

One test came back negative for one toxin that would be present in harmful algal blooms, and another test is still pending, Wynne said.

The carcasses of the marine mammals were discovered between Memorial Day weekend and early July. Most of the animals were too decomposed for sampling.