Dead 60-Foot Whale Attracts Sharks, Small Fleet of Boaters

In a rare glimpse of ocean life resembling a Discovery Channel show, people aboard a dozen pleasure boats watched Friday as two great white sharks and other sea creatures feasted on the carcass of a 60-foot whale off Newport Beach.

The dead mammal, believed to be a species of baleen whale, apparently was struck and killed in the shipping lanes beyond Catalina Island and then drifted, said John Blauer, a spokesman for the Newport Beach lifeguards.

It was the fifth whale to be hit and killed by ships in the last month, authorities said.

Ships of the Navy’s 3rd Fleet collided with three whales during training exercises off the coast. In a typical year, biologists record only one or two whale collisions in the region.

Last week, a dead fin or sei whale 45 to 50 feet long washed ashore at Huntington Beach. The decaying carcass was buried in the sand.

The whale spotted Friday apparently had been dead for several days when it drifted into Los Angeles Harbor, said Joe Cordero, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Long Beach.

Blauer said the carcass was towed out to sea late Thursday or early Friday, but floated south and toward the coastline until it came near the harbor entrance in Newport Beach. Along with it came a great white shark about 20 feet long, feeding on the 70 tons of whale flesh. That shark was joined by a second great white, then several mako and blue sharks.

The great whites, which prefer the deep, cooler waters farther out to sea, could not resist the bounty the whale offered, Blauer said.

“Once they smell food, they’d probably swim all the way up the Santa Ana River if they could,” he said.

As two Newport Beach lifeguard boats tried to tie a tow line to the whale, yachts, power boats, kayaks and other pleasure craft ferried out to watch the feeding frenzy.

Passengers on a Catalina Flyer boat, apparently on a return trip from the island, also witnessed the rare scene.

The two lifeguard boats dropped the tow line in the water, got it under the whale and maneuvered their boats to capture the carcass in a slip knot for towing.

Josh Van Egmond, a lifeguard, said several of the pleasure boats, eager to move in for a closer look, at times got in the way of the lifeguard boats as they tried to secure the whale to the tow line.

“There were a couple of people who didn’t understand how we were towing the whale, so some people tried to get between the tow boats and the whale,” Van Egmond said.

A lifeguard boat eventually towed the carcass about 15 miles farther out to sea, moving at 1 or 2 knots.

“You can’t go much faster than that towing a 60-foot whale,” Blauer said.

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Times wire services were used in compiling this report.