A 17-meter-long sperm whale died in Bali after washing up on a beach on the Indonesian island, a conservation official said Sunday, making this the third occasion in which a whale has done such a thing in a little over a week.

It was reported that the male sperm whale was found stranded on Yeh Leh beach in west Bali's Jembrana district on Saturday afternoon.

"We are currently trying to pull the carcass to the shore to make it easier for the necropsy test and we will bury it after the test is concluded," local marine and fisheries official Permana Yudiarso told AFP on Sunday.  

April alone has seen three whales beach themselves in the Indonesian tourist attraction site.

Just Wednesday, a whale around 18-meter-long was found beached in the Klungkung district, on Bali's eastern coast.

Conservation officials confirmed that an autopsy was underway as the result of the whale beaching itself.

After it washed up on the east part of the island, the whale was pushed back to sea, only to beach itself again just hours after on a different beach. There were no visible wounds on the whale, local marine and fisheries official Permana Yudiarso told AFP. 

"We are still investigating the cause of death. We want to get a scientific explanation of whether it was because of pollution or plastic," he stated. Police guarded the beach in Bali and kept people away to prevent the theft of the whale's meat or body parts.

Before that, a Bryde's whale standing at around 11m long was found stranded on a beach in Tabanan on April 1, though the carcass was already rotten upon discovery.

Necropsy test may take time

According to Yudiarso, the sperm whale discovered Saturday died of illness, "just like the whale found stranded a few days ago."

"The body looked skinny and sickly," he added.

Furthermore, he explained that the necropsy test would take at least three weeks to be concluded, though forensic experts found some bleeding in the whale's lungs and noted that its colon was filled with fluids.

The location was cordoned off so as to stop people from stealing the whale's meat or body parts.

Listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world's largest predator - the sperm whale, is "vulnerable" to extinction. 

In 2018, a sperm whale washed up on shore in Indonesia and was found with more than 100 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach.

Indonesia is known as the world's second-biggest contributor to marine debris following China.

Just last month, a tanker that carried some 800,000 liters of industrial fuel partially sank in the waters off the Philippines coast and caused the oil onboard to spill.

The spill expanded to reach approximately 24 square kilometers away from The Philippines' coast, threatening the local marine life.