A bloated whale carcass floated to the surface just offshore near San Elijo campgrounds at Cardiff State Beach in Encinitas, California Monday. The carcass was first spotted about 400 yards offshore, prompting local lifeguards and State Parks personnel to tow it further out to sea. A great white was spotted feeding on the carcass, and personnel reported the shark followed them as they towed the carcass further away from shore.
“The whale carcass is now over a mile from the coastline, but beachgoers should use caution when entering the water in this area over the next few days,” city officials announced on Monday afternoon.
Several images and clips of the whale and the effort to tow it made the rounds on social media. Some of the footage showed a large shark making passes and feeding on the carcass.
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Officials hadn’t cited a cause of death as of Tuesday morning, though many similar cases typically involve whales getting sick and either washing ashore before they die or, in this case, being found dead just offshore.
“When they get sick, they beach themselves to prevent from drowning,” Wallerstein said. “But they don’t know that beaching themselves is even worse because it puts a lot of pressure on their bodies,” Peter Wallerstein, president and founder of Marine Animal Rescue, told NBC in Los Angeles in 2021.
A similar incident took place just a couple months ago, up the caost in Newport Beach, where a commercial towing crew was needed to move a 30-foot whale about 25 miles out to sea.
“The plan is to take the whale offshore to a designated location where natural ocean processes will allow it to eventually sink and become part of the marine ecosystem,” a crewmember explained to KTLA at the time.
