When Wally the whale washed up dead at Los Angeles’ popular Dockweiler State Beach just before the Fourth of July weekend, the 40-ton carcass was towed out to sea in hopes it would decompose far from the shoreline, allowing nature to take its course.
But the bobbing, 45-foot whale didn’t stay in the open ocean. Instead, it drifted close to shore in Newport Beach on Sunday, with lifeguards spending the day towing it away from the crowded beaches. Then a strong south wind overnight brought the humpback close to shore Monday and lifeguards were forced to haul it back out to sea once again.
What they don’t want is a situation similar to what happened at the popular Trestles surf break south of San Clemente in April: a rotting carcass washing ashore and stinking up the shoreline.
“It becomes a cleanup; the biomass of it is a huge amount,” said Newport Beach lifeguard Battalion Chief Mike Halphide. “People love nature until it’s rotting on their doorstep.”
Not to mention the stench could attract predators – namely sharks – which experts and longtime lifeguards say have been increasing in number and getting bigger off Orange County in recent years. A woman nearly died in late May when she was bitten by a 10-foot great white shark off Corona del Mar, not far from where the dead whale is threatening to wash ashore.
“We wouldn’t want this attracting a food source sitting on our beach,” Halphide said.
Wally was already famous before washing ashore at Dockweiler weeks ago. Experts for years have tracked the whale, which they first thought to be male but later determined to be female, and it had frequented Orange County’s shoreline.
Alisa Schulman-Janiger, research associate for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, said the whale appeared to be 15 years old, according to past reports. Wally was regularly spotted last summer from Dana Point to Newport Beach, where she was likely following a food source.
Mission Viejo resident and whale enthusiast Mark Girardeau took drone video of Wally last July, with a bright rainbow showing in the whale’s spout. The video on YouTube went viral, generating more than 1 million page views.
Girardeau also documented lifeguards Sunday towing Wally back out to sea, watching from the Nautilus out of Newport Landing Whale Watching, captained by Mike Mongold.
“People on the boat seemed kind of sad,” Girardeau said. “But some were happy because it’s something rare; we don’t usually see a dead whale.”
For Girardeau, it was a somber moment.
“I know it’s just a wild animal, but it was a whale that became popular,” he said. “It was friendly.”
Girardeau said he knew it was the same whale because of markings on the tail. “It’s like a fingerprint,” he said.
Halphide said a call came in about 8:30 a.m. Sunday when the whale was three-quarters of a mile from Orange Street near West Newport. Lifeguards were able to hook onto an existing line from when it was towed out by Los Angeles lifeguards. The boat towed it until 5 p.m., able to travel only 11 miles because of the creature’s size and weight.
“To say it’s large is an understatement,” he said.
They took it north of an area called 14-Mile Bank. “The idea is that eventually it would sink,” said Halphide.
According to a story on GrindTV, Wally’s carcass was being chomped on by great white sharks, the largest being 18 feet long, last week off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. A shark research boat reportedly was attacked by one of the sharks seven times.
On Monday, the south wind had brought it back to about 4 miles from the Newport Pier, where Halphide could see the whale with his binoculars. So they spent Monday dragging it out to sea again, though there’s no guarantee it won’t wash up again on a beach farther south.
In 2002, Newport lifeguards towed a dead blue whale out to sea, and a big great white shark was captured in photos sinking its teeth into its corpse. That whale ended up washing up near the San Onofre trails.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
