A 13,000-pound young gray whale washed ashore at Malibu’s Little Dume beach on Saturday, the California Wildlife Center (CWC) said in a social media post March 17.

Officials responded to a call of the “sub-adult” whale in distress that was “stranded” and “wedged in the sand,” they said.

They said they are working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to determine next steps.

“We are currently planning to get samples from the whale to help determine why this happened,” they said.

The California Wildlife Center didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Filmmaker and Point Dume resident Richard Raymond told The Malibu Times, the coastal city’s first newspaper, that he was walking the beach with his son when he saw the gray whale, which was still alive.

“Only a few moments later it passed. … A stark reminder of nature’s brutal honesty. This leviathan’s last choice, to beach itself—as tragic as it was awe-inspiring,” he said.

He said he had remembered sea lions dying on the shore a few years ago but never a whale so large.

In late February, a juvenile gray whale that was about 24 feet long and 11,000 pounds got stranded in shallow water at La Jolla Shores, near San Diego, where it later died.