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‘It’s something you really hate to see’ — dead whale gets a sandy burial after washing ashore in Huntington Beach

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A whale carcass that washed ashore at Huntington Beach was buried under the sand Tuesday — joining two of its previously fallen brethren in a sort of makeshift shoreline tomb near lifeguard tower 13, according to media reports.

Lifeguards from the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Division told KTLA they received an alert from the Coast Guard that the dead mammal was floating in the area early Monday morning.

According to the Orange County Register, lifeguards tied a rope around the whale’s tail to tow it back into the ocean when it washed ashore. But, after the whale bobbed back in, officials decided to bury it in the sand — about 15 feet deep.

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“It’s a big creature,” Marine Safety Lt. Greg Crow told KTLA. “It’s something you really hate to see. They’re magnificent creatures. Everyone that got to see it was saddened by it.”

Similar incidents have occurred in Newport Beach. In 2017, lifeguards kept a close eye on the horizon to try and keep a 55-foot dead humpback whale from making its way back to the beach. Over the course of two weeks in 2016, another dead humpback whale kept threatening to wash ashore.

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