Residents warned of stench as dead whale finally taken to Perth landfill site
The whale carcass was hoisted by the crane this morning to remove it from the beach. (ABC News)
A huge humpback whale that washed up at Perth’s City Beach on Monday is finally being removed from the shoreline, more than three days after attracting large crowds – and circling sharks.
A 72-tonne crane hired by the Town of Cambridge began lifting the 13-metre long, decomposing carcass at about 10am today.
Contractors spent all day at the beach yesterday preparing to move the whale, but the excavator hired for the job was not strong enough to shift the mammal, which initially weighed 31 tonnes.
It was instead wrapped in a net and dragged 1.5 kilometres along the shore to the surf club, where it remained overnight.
As the $100,000 operation continued, a tagged white shark was detected this morning about four kilometres up the coast in Scarborough.
According to the state government's SharkSmart website, the predator was detected six times between 5:55am and 7:17am this morning.
Town of Cambridge Mayor Gary Mack estimates the operation will cost the town $100,000. (ABC News: Lucy Murray)
Town of Cambridge Mayor Gary Mack said the plan was to bury the whale in landfill.
"It'll be lifted up, it'll be laid on the truck and then sent to landfill," he told 102.5 ABC Perth.
Mr Mack has not ruled out asking the state government to foot the bill, but said the Town of Cambridge was planning to pay for the whale's removal.
Yesterday, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development shared underwater footage on social media of a shark its staff had tagged in the area.
Both a 3.7 metre and a 3.1 metre white shark were tagged off Floreat and City Beach.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.