Neighbors of a beachfront neighborhood west of Port Angeles quickly learned Sunday there is little to do but watch when a 30-foot-plus whale carcass slowly washes ashore.
What was unofficially identified as the carcass of a gray whale was washing up north of the community on Place Road, west of the Elwha River.
The marine mammal, possibly a cow with an unborn calf, was about four feet from the shore late Sunday night, Place Road resident Lyndee Lapin said.
“Everybody was out with their binoculars,” said Lapin, whose husband, Allen, spotted the whale carcass washing in from about 100 yards out early Sunday morning while walking their dog. A neighbor pointed the dead floating mammal out to him.
“You can tell it’s a football Sunday because you don’t have 500 people gawking,” Lyndee dryly quipped after more closely examining the large creature early Sunday afternoon.
The Lapins, who have lived on Place Road for three years, tried their best Sunday to report the whale and get a marine biologist out to identify it, but were unsuccessful.
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The rest of the story appears in Monday’s Peninsula Daily News.