Dead Whale Becomes a Feast Afloat

In a rare glimpse of ocean life resembling a Discovery Channel show, boaters on a dozen pleasure craft 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 whale, believed to be a baleen, apparently was struck and killed in the shipping lanes beyond Catalina Island and then drifted, said John Blauer, a spokesman for Newport Beach lifeguards.

The giant mammal was the fifth to be hit and killed by ships in the past month, authorities said. Three of the whales collided with ships from the Navy’s 3rd Fleet as it conducted training exercises off the coast. In a typical year, biologists record only one or two whale strikes 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 hastily buried in the sand.

The whale spotted Friday off Newport Beach had apparently been dead for several days before it first drifted into San Pedro Harbor, said Joe Cordero, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Long Beach, which tracks whale strikes.

Blauer said the whale was towed out to sea late Thursday or early Friday from San Pedro Harbor, but floated south and toward the coast until it approached the harbor entrance in Newport Beach. A great white shark about 20 feet long accompanied the whale, feeding on the 70 tons of flesh. That shark was joined by another 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 that 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 the whale onto a towing line, 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 as the sharks fed on the huge carcass.

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

Lifeguard Josh Van Egmond said several of the pleasure craft, eager to move close to see the sharks’ teeth, at times got in the way of the lifeguard boats as they tried to secure the whale to the tow line. The hindrance was minor and no one was in danger, he said.

A lifeguard boat eventually began towing the whale about 15 miles out to sea, moving 1 to 2 knots an hour.

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

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Times wire services contributed to this report.