Huge dead whale washes up on British beach

A huge whale carcass has washed up on a British beach as experts say its too rotten to be taken away and locals warn its beginning to smell.

The creature - which is believed to be a minke or fin whale - washed up on Headland Beach, Hartlepool and can't be moved.

The Environment Agency is warning members of the public to stay away from the dead animal.

The UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) attends whale strandings so it can carry out post-mortems to determine whether they occurred naturally or were caused by humans.

A spokesperson for (CSIP) told the BBC the whale was 'far too decomposed for us to justify attendance on site'.

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Rob Deaville, project manager for CSIP at the Institute of Zoology added that decomposed whales 'lose pathological value' and so they would not collect the whale.

He said he's at a loss as to why the animal became beached but suggested it could be a number of factors such as entanglement in fishing equipment, ship strike or underlying disease.

One member of the public, who spotted the whale on September 25, said he was 'scared' of the gigantic mammal. 

He said: 'I go to the beach every day for a walk, I bumped into a lady who said there was a big whale on the beach.

'I thought she was having a laugh, off I went and I spotted the whale and the RSPCA were there to cordon the place off.

'I was a bit scared at first, anyone would with the size of something like that.

'I have never seen a real whale before.

'I hesitated at first, I wasn't sure if it was alive or not but the closer we got I realized it was dead.'

Mr Deaville does not believe the local council will have been prepared with the equipment needed to remove the carcass.

He said it could be used as landfill, be incinerated or just left until it completely rots away.