Last Sunday morning, as L.A. County lifeguards planned to tow a 51-foot fin whale carcass 20-plus miles offshore, Keith Poe was in intercept mode.
Poe, who tags and photographs great white sharks for scientific research, had hoped to be on site when the carcass was cut loose because dead whales usually attract sharks.
But the mission went awry.
The 60,000-pound whale carcass, which was prepared in a manner to facilitate sinking after it was safely offshore, began to sink soon after it was dragged off Torrance Beach, where the subadult whale had stranded and died late Saturday.
This created insurmountable drag on the boat, so lifeguards left the carcass only 2.5 miles offshore. It sank at a depth of 535 feet, Poe told FTW Outdoors.
Poe, giving up on the sinking carcass, ventured into the offshore pelagic zone, midway between the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Santa Catalina Island.
“When the whale sank I just went offshore to chum for mako sharks,” Poe said. “And then that girl showed up.”
“That girl” is the fully grown great white shark featured in the accompanying images, which Poe captured during the 30 minutes he spent alongside the apex predator.
Poe estimated the shark to measure 16 to 18 feet. He captioned his Facebook post: “Giant visitor from yesterday. SoCal.”
The images were inspected by the Marine Conservation Science Institute and the shark was not in its photo ID database for California white sharks. Poe told FTW Outdoors that the shark is now in the database with the name Catalina.
Poe said he did not tag the shark because of a permitting issue.
While it’s not rare for adult great white sharks to cruise the San Pedro Channel, many Southern California residents might not be aware that such large sharks exist in the region.
As for the malnourished fin whale, it washed ashore with no obvious trauma or visible evidence of a ship strike. It died roughly two hours later.
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The Pacific Marine Mammal Center stated Tuesday via Instagram:
“While large whale strandings are heartbreaking, we are very thankful we had the opportunity to collect samples and photo document this animal to try to help determine cause of death.
“These findings will help us better understand threats to this endangered species and by sharing this information with policymakers we can be champions to their road of recovery.”
Several agencies and groups, including NOAA, collaborated on the beached whale operation.
