Whale Carcass Is Grim Find at Beach : Ocean life: The humpback, apparently killed by a ship’s propeller, washes ashore at Venice. Scientists cut away the creature’s head for study.

Venice boardwalk visitors enjoying the return of sunny skies Monday came across an unexpected sight: the beached remains of a humpback whale.

The mammal had been nearly cut in two at sea, apparently by a ship, then buffeted ashore Sunday by weekend storms.

While strandings of dead dolphins and gray whales are not uncommon along the 76-mile Los Angeles County coast, experts said they could not recall another instance of a humpback, an endangered species, landing on a local beach.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a humpback wash up in 20 years” of whale research, said John Heyning, a marine biologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Heyning said that about 500 humpbacks--sometimes called “singing” whales because of the males’ submarine mating calls--usually spend winter near the coast of Mexico and then spend warmer months feeding in the waters off Central California.

On Monday the dead cetacean bobbed up and down in heavy surf, hundreds of barnacles clinging to its massive jaw and its rotting 12-foot fin chained to a bulldozer. Heyning and a couple of colleagues severed blubber and muscle with Japanese flensing knives, a cross between a machete and a sickle, to remove the whale’s head. Museum scientists plan to analyze the skull to gain more knowledge about everything from the humpbacks’ feeding habits to their evolution, Heyning said.

As Heyning and others worked through the afternoon, small bands of passersby and sunbathers braved the whale’s stench, strolling to the water’s edge to gawk and snap photographs.

“The beach is so steep (due to winter erosion) that we’re having some trouble working with (the corpse),” Heyning said. Adult humpbacks can weigh up to 60 tons.

The rest of the carcass will be buried on the beach by the county Department of Beaches and Harbors--a common funeral for dead whales, said spokesman Ken Johnson.