GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Robert Braun, left, and Jeffrey Walters prepared some rigging yesterday to remove the carcass of a whale in Kualoa.

Whale of a problem

Most of the carcass has been
buried, but a shark alert is still up

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By Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com

Except for a few remaining pieces, the carcass of a sperm whale that drifted ashore Wednesday just north of the Kualoa Sugar Mill was removed from the beach and taken to Kualoa Ranch for burial yesterday.

Water safety officials, however, continued to urge beachgoers in the area to be cautious of sharks, which may be attracted to the whale oil and tissue remnants still in the water.

No sharks have been sighted, but city lifeguards advise the public to stay close to shore.

Officials posted shark warning signs Wednesday at nearby Kualoa Beach Park after the carcass was spotted. The signs were expected to stay up today and will not be removed until the oil and tissues dissipate.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Braun and Walters attached the lines to prepare the beached whale for hoisting yesterday. The putrid carcass was that of a sperm whale, rare in Hawaiian waters.

Jeff Walters, a state whale sanctuary manager, said the whale probably had been dead for weeks and that sharks had been feeding on it. By the time it drifted to Windward shores, it was in "a putrid state" and not attractive to sharks.

Walters said it was a sperm whale, a rarely seen and endangered species, about 40 feet long. The carcass was badly decomposed, making the cause of death impossible to determine, he said.

The remains that drifted ashore consisted largely of the skull, measuring 20 feet by 4 feet and weighing 10,000 pounds, Walters said.

It was easier to bury the skull rather than tow it out to sea because it would "just float ashore somewhere else," Walters said.

Officials had hoped to break up the skull with a backhoe and take the pieces to a landfill. But the heavy skull could not be broken, and workers had to cart it across Kamehameha Highway to the ranch for burial.

The highway was closed yesterday afternoon as workers transported the carcass.

Four chunks of tissue remain at the beach and are to be taken to the ranch today to be buried.