Waves Wash Up a Giant Problem

Huntington Beach residents woke up to a whale of a problem Tuesday.

Overnight, high waves driven by an evening storm had pushed a dead, 25-foot gray whale onto the sand just 200 yards north of the pier and right in front of posh, surfside condominiums.

Huntington Beach Marine Safety Capt. Bill Richardson learned about the whale at 7 a.m. and began hearing complaints about it soon after that.

“Those people (in the Huntington Pacific condominiums) are not happy with a dead whale in their backyard. They would like it moved,” he said.

Some residents griped about the sight of the beached whale, apparently a recent casualty, with a bloated mouth and gashes in its side.

They also complained about curiosity seekers. All day, condominium security officer Gary Guimon said, people tried to cut through the grounds and scale an iron gate to the beach to get to the whale more quickly. By mid-afternoon, Guimon said, he had ushered six trespassers off the property.

Further, Guimon and several residents said, they were appalled at what some of the hundred or so viewers were doing to the whale.

Though many stood quietly in the rain, taking pictures, gazing solemnly at the dead mammal and then moving on, some people attacked the whale, Guimon said. “We got idiots out there, kicking it, hitting it with sticks . . . and taking the hunter-type picture, standing on its head.”

“I’m surprised they aren’t cutting it up and taking it as souvenirs,” he said. “It’s a little like kicking a dead child to me.”

Condominium residents had one other concern: “I just hope it doesn’t smell,” said Susie Thompson, a director of the condominium board.

Thompson’s fear was valid, Richardson said. But at the moment, a city earthmover, used in the past to bury dead mammals or push them out to sea, was in the shop for repairs. For now, he said, city officials could do little more than to hope that new storms would push the whale back into the water and onto more isolated beaches farther south.

It is not easy to get rid of a dead whale, Richardson noted. The best way to handle it is to bury it in the sand, he said, but “the problem is having the right kind of equipment. You have to dig a hole at least its length and twice its depth, in this case over 30 feet long, 10 feet wide and well over six feet deep. So it’s a major project.”

Meanwhile, there was no telling when the earthmover would be fixed. “We’ve been waiting for parts for four days. We’re at the mercy of the parts people. . . . It’s a case of Murphy’s Law: If it’s something you need, it’ll usually be broken,” Richardson said.

He said that the best the city could hope for was that “it’ll float down some more,” either to a part of the beach south of the pier or perhaps to Huntington State Beach two miles south, where the city no longer would be responsible for removing it. After all, he noted, the whale first came ashore Sunday on state property at Bolsa Chica State Park but then floated onto the city land during Monday’s storm.

All day Tuesday, residents, tourists and students came to look at the whale. Most of them said they were fascinated but saddened by the sight.

“It’s so sad ‘cause it’s dead. Like it got caught. It came here and it was, like, helpless and it couldn’t get on its legs and walk back into the sea,” said Mahin Wyassini, 16, who with several friends had ditched their fifth-period classes to see the whale.

Bruce Oakes, 37, a truck driver from Salt Lake City, also said this was the first whale he had seen. “But this is a bad way to see one because it’s dead. And there are not enough of them left to be dying like this,” he said.

Dennis Kelly, a marine biologist from Orange Coast College, said he had examined the whale at Bolsa Chica. He described it as a female yearling that apparently starved. Though the whale showed evidence of some shark bites, Kelly said he believed those wounds had healed. He said that he suspected the young whale’s mother had died, either from an attack of killer sharks or because she was caught in fishermen’s gill nets. Then, he said, the yearling whale probably couldn’t find food by itself.