VICTORIA - An advocate for whales says many collisions between vessels and the animals are likely undetected or unreported as Fisheries Department investigates another death of a humpback whale off B.C.'s coast.

Caitlin Birdsall, executive director of the Marine Education and Research Society, says the whale discovered Nov. 8 off Lasqueti Island in the Georgia Strait near the Sunshine Coast and is the third confirmed death since late September.

She says it's unclear what happened to the 21-year-old whale, which the Fisheries Department has identified in photos as Polyphemus, a whale that migrates between Hawaii and waters off B.C.

Birdsall says can't say if whale deaths are increasing because of ship strikes, because most dead whales are never found, but she can say that "there has been

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