HUNTINGTON BEACH : Beached Whale Was a Victim of Ship

A 45-foot fin whale that washed up on Huntington State Beach this week had been accidentally killed in Los Angeles Harbor by a passing ship, authorities said Friday.

The whale’s carcass washed ashore Wednesday at 4 p.m. on the stretch of beach between the Santa Ana River and the new Talbert Channel. It was buried in the sand on Thursday by workmen from the state beach after a team from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County removed the whale’s head for scientific study.

“This was a young whale of the fin, or finback, species, the second largest of all the species of whales,” said John Heyning, curator of marine mammals at the Natural History Museum. “A team of us from the museum went to Huntington Beach on Thursday because we have a very active research program on marine mammals.”

Heyning said the whale had been struck and killed last week by a container ship in Los Angeles Harbor. “The whale was then towed out to sea, but currents do strange things,” Heyning said.

Steve Hawkins, a lifeguard at Huntington State Beach, said Friday that the whale’s carcass started washing toward shore late Wednesday afternoon. “We saw it out in the water, a big mass of we didn’t know what,” Hawkins said. The lifeguard said museum officials were notified after the carcass washed ashore.

Heyning said that full-grown fin whales are 60 to 70 feet long.