A few days ago, a dead whale washed up on the beach at Trestles. As one of California’s most popular surf spots, it was a strange and sad occurrence. Of course, there were worries: how it happened, whether it would attract sharks, and how authorities planned on removing 60,000 pounds of whale from the beach.
Well, the whale is gone. After initial plans to drag the carcass out to sea and let it do whatever it is dead whales do in the ocean do were scrapped, a contractor (what a weird bid that must’ve been) spent a full two days cutting up the whale. Afterwards, the pieces were sent to a landfill in San Diego, where the seagulls reportedly are throwing a two-week party.
The contractor charged somewhere around $30,000 to remove the whale, along with the top layer of sand from the area. “It’s expected there will be a little bit of a smell down there for a while,” said Rich Haydon, the superintendent of State Parks to the Orange County Register, “but I think we dodged a bullet.”
For a while there, the regular crowd at Lowers moved from the ocean to the beach. Although the stench must have been incredible, people showed up in droves to see the rotting carcass. Now that it’s gone, surfers can get back to business as usual.
