Humpback whale washes ashore

STONINGTON, Conn. (WTNH) -- A dead whale washed up to Lords Point in Stonington Monday morning and brought with it quite a crowd.

Neighbors first noticed the whale washed up in the cove Monday morning.

• Photos: Humpback whale washes ashore

"We usually go to the aquarium so this was something we had to see since it was so close," said Ashley Campbell of New London.

Folks got quite a sight and quite an odor.

"Me and my dad don't even know if it's alive or not," said Brian Gaffney of Stonington. "I think the whale's pretty cool and it's really smelly here."

The whale, which was dead when it floated here, was belly up and bloated.

"It's something, really shocking," said Mark Lejko from Iowa. "I never seen something like this before. In my opinion it really stinks here."
 
"This is a humpback whale," said Erin Merz from the Mystic Aquarium. "We're not certain if it's a male or a female but we do think it's fairly young because it is pretty small, it's about 20 feet in length."

It will being towed to a beach where a necropsy can be performed to try to determine what happened to it and how long it has been dead. It will then be buried on the beach.

Humpback whales are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which means dead or alive you cannot touch them.

But folks certainly got a sight they usually don't see in these parts.

"We saw your news broadcast on Facebook and that's what brought us out here," Campbell said.