Whale death closes beaches

09 October 2012 - 02:12 By NASHIRA DAVIDS
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The carcass of a southern right whale was removed from the water off Capricorn Beach, Cape Town, yesterday and rolled by a bulldozer over the sand to Baden Powell Drive, where it was loaded onto a flat-bed truck to be taken to the Vissershok landfill site Picture: SHELLEY CHRISTIANS
The carcass of a southern right whale was removed from the water off Capricorn Beach, Cape Town, yesterday and rolled by a bulldozer over the sand to Baden Powell Drive, where it was loaded onto a flat-bed truck to be taken to the Vissershok landfill site Picture: SHELLEY CHRISTIANS

The carcass of the 30m whale washed up on Capricorn Beach, False Bay, on Sunday has been removed but a large section of the Cape Town coastline will remain closed "as a precaution".

The decision to close the shoreline between Muizenberg and Monwabisi beaches was taken on Sunday.

The closure will be in effect until further notice.

The carcass of the southern right whale attracted sharks to the beaches.

Disaster response teams moved swiftly to get the animal out of the water and onto a flat-bed truck.

Enormous chunks of flesh had been torn off and eaten by great white sharks.

"A decision was taken to begin the recovery operation immediately because of the increase of shark activity off beaches along the False Bay coastline," said Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, a spokesman for Cape Town's disaster risk management centre.

A merciless wind could not stop curious onlookers and a flock of seagulls from streaming to the site.

Claire McKinnon, manager of the Cape Town cleansing and solid-waste management department, said samples were taken from the carcass to enable pathologists to establish the cause of death before it was disposed of at the Vissershok landfill site.

Once the whale was out of the water, a bulldozer rolled it over the sand.

A section of the cetacean's tale was severed once it came to a standstill on a section of Baden Powell Drive, where the flat-bed truck waited.

"Mummy, why is the whale broken?" a boy asked as his mother hurriedly moved through the crowd that had gathered on the dunes.

Motorists' jaws dropped as they passed just centimetres from the gigantic carcass.

Solomons-Johannes said it was not known whether the whale was alive when the sharks attacked it or had succumbed to an illness.

"Under normal circumstances predators such as sharks often sneak up on their prey from behind or underneath. Predators don't usually face off in a fight. A predator goes in quickly and quietly attacks the prey.

"Predators choose the ill, injured, young or old animals to hunt because they are easier to catch."

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