Freshly smoothed sand covers the carcass of a 15-ton humpback whale that was buried in the sand in Barnegat Light, N.J. on Monday, Dec. 28, 2020. The whale had washed ashore three days earlier. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)Wayne Parry

BY WAYNE PARRY ASSOCIATED PRESS

BARNEGAT LIGHT, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey beach is the final resting place for a 15-ton (13,600-kilogram) whale whose lifeless body washed ashore on Christmas day.

State and local officials used heavy equipment to bury the 31-foot (9.5-meter) male humpback whale on a beach Monday morning.

The whale was frozen solid and could not be cut into pieces for removal, as is commonly done in other cases in which dead whales wash ashore. That was the way crews removed a large whale that washed ashore in Toms River in April 2017 when temperatures were warmer.

“We needed to do something with it and we couldn’t leave it there any longer; there were just too many people coming near it,” Bob Schoelkopf, co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said after the whale was buried on Monday.

A front-end loader rests on the sand in Barnegat Light N.J. on Monday, Dec. 28, 2020, after burying a 15-ton humpback whale whose carcass had washed ashore three days earlier. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)Wayne Parry

Crews using two front-end loaders dug a trench and rolled the whale into it, then smoothed sand on top of it. By early afternoon, the only sign that a massive whale had been there was a lingering stench in the immediate area.

Schoelkopf said its cause of death was unknown, but there were no obvious physical signs of injury on the parts of it that were visible. It did not appear to have eaten in quite awhile, indicating it may have been ill.

If you’re not receiving our free updates, sign up here