MARBLEHEAD — What do you do with a 65,000-pound dead whale? That’s the question facing authorities after a humpback whale washed up in the surf near Preston Beach Thursday night.
As of Friday afternoon, the whale was still floating upside down a few feet from the beach’s rocky shore, with dozens of people standing on the rocks to get a closer look.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Swampscott resident Colleen Hankins said as she stood on a path high above the water with her son, Alex. “It’s surreal.”
“I’ve never seen a whale before so it’s really cool,” added Alex, 20. “Sad but cool.”
The whale washed up on Thursday afternoon. Ron Watson of the Seacoast Science Center Marine Mammal Rescue program said staff members went into the water to conduct a preliminary assessment but were limited due to the rocky conditions and had not yet determined how the whale died.
Watson said even if the whale had been struck by a boat its injuries could be internal and wouldn’t be discovered without a necropsy, or animal autopsy. The whale has several scars, but those are common, he said.
The assessment did determine that the whale is a young adult female humpback, 41 feet, 7 inches long, and weighs about 65,000 pounds.
Watson said it was “certainly unusual” to find a washed-up humpback whale in this area. The Marine Mammal Rescue program, which is based in New Hampshire, responds to “a few” of them per year, he said.
The town of Marblehead is working with NOAA, Seacoast Science Center and Tufts University on what to do next. Marblehead Harbormaster Mark Sousa said they were looking for a barge or tow company that can tow the whale carcass away from Preston Beach, which is a public beach, and take it about 300 to 400 yards off shore, where it would be chained to a mooring.
The best scenario from there, he said, would be if “nature’s cycle” took its course, meaning predators, like sharks, would eat the carcass and it would sink to the bottom of the ocean. In its current condition, he said, the whale remains floating because it is bloated and filled with gas.
In the meantime, Souza said officials are also looking for a facility that could take the carcass if it doesn’t end up sinking in the ocean. He said the carcass can be dismantled and used for various purposes, including scientific studies and fertilizer. Watson said museums are sometimes looking for whale skeletons to put on display.
Souza said he was hoping the whale could be towed sometime on Saturday morning. He said it’s important to remove the carcass away from the beach for public health reasons, including the smell.
“When something starts decaying there’s concerns from that,” he said.
Officials don’t want the whale to wash up on someone else’s shore, Souza said, and “be a burden to another community.”
Souza said having a humpback whale wash up was “pretty unusual” for this area.
NOAA Fisheries said in a statement that elevated humpback whale mortalities have occurred along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida since January 2016, including 42 in Massachusetts. About 40% of the whales examined showed evidence of either ship strike or entanglement.
NOAA said people should maintain a safe distance from all marine mammals, and should report all stranded marine mammals and sea turtles to NOAA’s marine mammal and sea turtle stranding hotline at 866-755-6622.