Dead humpback whale washes ashore at Dockweiler State Beach

Officials today are working to clear a dead 45-foot-long male humpback whale that washed onto Dockweiler State Beach just before the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Curious onlookers are being kept 200 feet from the carcass as marine mammal rescuers, lifeguards and county Beaches and Harbors Department workers plan to tow it back out to sea.

The cause of its death is being investigated.

“It’s on its back now but, when it was right side up, I thought I saw an injury on its head. But hard to tell,” said Marine Animal Rescue Director Peter Wallerstein. “From the underbelly, there are no signs of trauma.”

The whale’s rorqual pleats, which are like its neck, were exposed as it laid in the surf. The throat grooves are designed to expand greatly to get as much shrimp-like krill and various small fish in each swallow. Weighing 24 to 40 tons, humpbacks can eat more than a ton of food a day. Their tongues are the size of an African elephant.

This is the second dead humpback to come ashore near Los Angeles in two weeks. The first, a female possible ship-strike victim, was brought into the Port of Los Angeles on the bow of a ship on June 14. National Marine Fisheries Service officials are still investigating the cause of that 48-foot whale’s death.

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