Lifeguards remove “Wally the Whale” from Encinitas beach

ENCINITAS (KUSI) — Lifeguards made a second attempt this morning to haul a humpback whale carcass from Grandview Beach that has been washing up along various beaches in Los Angeles and Orange County for weeks.

Wally the Whale, as the carcass has come to be known, first washed ashore in Los Angeles before the Fourth of July, and prior attempts at towing the carcass offshore have ended with the whale back on Southern California beaches.

On Wednesday, sheriff’s deputies in Dana Point spent about three-and-a-half hours towing the whale’s carcass back out to sea after it drifted toward shore. Wally had previously washed up in Newport Beach and at Dockweiler State Beach in Los Angeles County.

He drifted south and washed up along the shore in the Leucadia area over the weekend.

On Sunday, an attempt to remove the 22-ton carcass failed when two tires on a piece of heavy equipment popped under the whale’s weight, Encinitas Lifeguard Capt. Larry Giles said. But lifeguards tried again Monday during low tide.

National Marine Fisheries officials were allowing lifeguards to cut the carcass into four pieces, load them into dumpsters and take them to the Miramar landfill in San Diego, Giles said.