Beached beside a highway 10 miles up the coast from Ventura, the immense carcass of a blue whale drew hundreds of spectators Friday as biologists began to delve into it for a rare, clinical glimpse of the world's largest animal.
Nobody yet knows what killed the whale, which is about 78 feet long and estimated to weigh around 100,000 pounds. But scientists are eager to do detailed examinations of the putrefying hulk, which washed ashore Thursday night just yards from Hobson County Park, a seaside campground off Pacific Coast Highway.
Ventura County officials planned to have the massive body towed about a mile through the water this morning to a beach with better access for heavy equipment and more sand for burying remains. The beach, just up the coast from Faria County Park, fronts a popular RV parking area, which will have to be partially cleared as scientists do their grim studies.
"There will be some unhappy campers, as they say," said Ron Van Dyck, a county parks official.
It wasn't the only blue whale death in recent days. Last weekend, a lifeless blue whale was found floating in Long Beach Harbor -- possibly hauled there inadvertently by a freighter that struck it in the Santa Barbara Channel, according to Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
On Wednesday, Seaman Eti Lotoa, standing watch on the U.S. Navy frigate Curts while on a training mission, sighted what may be another dead blue whale in the water 70 miles from San Diego -- but it also might be the carcass of the Long Beach whale, which was towed to sea by the Coast Guard, Cordaro said.
In Ventura County on Friday, lookie-loos parked by the roadside to take photos of the dead whale and give their children an up-close, if somber, look at a colossal example of an endangered species. An Amtrak train stopped on tracks across the road as the engineer took a photo with his cellphone and passengers goggled out the windows.
"Amazing!" said Terry Hewitt, a cook at Cal State Channel Islands who came to view the whale on her day off. "I was swimming out there yesterday and if that thing had passed me in the water -- well, oh my God!"
About 100 to 200 blue whales have been feeding in the Santa Barbara Channel during their annual summer migration from Mexico and Central America. This one was spotted from the air Tuesday, floating, and scientists tagging healthy blue whales were directed to it.
