On Thursday evening, a massive, dead humpback whale washed up on Dockeiler State Beach in Los Angeles. At almost 50 feet long and weighing in at 22 tons, the whale carcass was probably between 10 and 20 years old. Officials, who figured out from the tag that it was a humpback named Wally, set about trying to figure out how to get rid of him before the masses showed up for July 4th weekend. Last night around 6:30, they got it done.
By the time Wally washed ashore, he was already long dead and starting to smell. “We ask that the people not come near the water here because you see the fluids are seeping out of it now,” said Capt. Kenichi Haskett of the Los Angeles County Lifeguards before the whale carcass was gone. “Those fluids pose a hazard, and you can already start to smell the stench from it, and this is only less than 24 hours.”
Like the recent whale at Trestles, Wally turned into quite the spectacle. While officials decided how to go about getting rid of 22 tons of whale, they roped off the area and asked curious onlookers to stay at least 200 feet away.
Instead of taking the gory route to dealing with the body, as was the case with the Trestles whale, they decided they’d tow it out to sea and let nature do its job.
Along with the county’s Department of Beaches and Harbors, lifeguards towed Wally out to sea, well beyond shipping lanes. From there, currents will hopefully keep it away from beaches, and the carcass will decompose. After a sand berm was built on one side of the whale, a tractor was used to push the dead whale into the ocean. Then, workers tied a rope to its tail and pulled it just over 6 miles out.
Officials pushed it off the beach then towed it out to sea. Image: WTOP
Biologists have taken tissue samples to determine the cause of death, and initial reports stated that the whale may have “experienced some trauma.”
