Even as scientists began the post-mortem examination on the 18ft adolescent – now believed to have been a female – on a quayside in Gravesend, Kent, yesterday, the blame game over the cause of death had begun.

Marine scientists and animal welfare groups believe that navy sonar may have disorientated the whale. Marine acoustics experts supported local residents on the north coast of Kent in blaming huge explosions from a site operated by the defence contractor QinetiQ.

The Royal Navy was the first to respond to the claim. “HMS Grafton was involved in a show last Friday on the coast,” a spokesman said.

“The only other ship in the North Sea is HMS Severn, and she was halfway to Belgium. Our sonar is good but not that good.”

In north Kent, residents reported blasts from Shoeburyness Range, a Ministry of Defence site where QinetiQ was carrying out controlled detonations last week.

“On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, it was like being in the middle of a war zone,” Tony Wilkinson, 65, a resident of Herne Bay, said.

“People suffered cracked floors, windows and ceilings.” Professor Rodney Coates, who specialises in marine acoustics, confirmed that such blasts could disorientate whales.

Roger Gale, MP for Thanet North, said: “We understand that one or more whales were seen off Southend on Tuesday. I hope that this factor may be taken into account during the post-mortem.”

QinetiQ said that it did not operate sub-water testing from the Shoeburyness Range that might affect marine life. A spokeswoman called the claims opportunistic.

The five experts on the quayside in Gravesend, led by Dr Paul Jepson of the Zoological Society of London, will examine the animal’s auditory organs. They will also look for evidence of a brain parasite that has been known to render whales disorientated. Sick whales head for shallower waters to die.

Struan Stevenson, the Conservative fisheries spokesman in the European Parliament, said that the Government had failed to ensure effective protection of cetaceum in British waters, part of the diet of the bottlenose. He said that a first written warning had been sent to the Government at the end of last year and that the death of the whale would lead to a referral to the European Court of Justice.

The whale died after a desperate rescue effort on Saturday evening. Nikki Kelly, 32, a marine mammal expert, said: “It had no food to eat. A healthy bottlenose can survive for several days without food, but it had used all its strength fighting the tide. Its underbelly was scarred. It had deep head wounds. Its dorsal fin had a large gash and its fluke was cut up.”

The barge rescue was risky — a whale’s large internal organs function under constant water pressure — but seemed the only hope. Martin Garside, of the Port of London Authority, recalled the desperate dash beneath crowded bridges as marine medics applied water and moisturising gel, and administered steroids and antibiotics.

Since 1913 the Natural History Museum has had the right to examine all whale carcasses that wash ashore in Britain.

After the post-mortem examination the museum says it may keep the skeleton for its research department. Results from the examination are expected on Wednesday.

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FAR FROM ITS NORTH ATLANTIC HOME

• It was the first sighting of the endangered species in the Thames for more than a century. The whale was first seen on Friday morning by a man on a train
• Bottlenoses are estimated to weigh up to four tonnes and can live to 40 years
• They normally inhabit the northern reaches of the North Atlantic Ocean, off the coasts of Norway, Iceland, Greenland and northern Labrador, in northeastern Canada
• They can dive up to 1,000m (3,300ft) in search of their main food, Arctic squid
• Males have a bulbous “forehead” rising abruptly from the beak

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