Residents and visitors to Kingscliff are advised to exercise caution around swimming at the local beaches over the next 24 hours following the discovery of a dead whale washed up on the beach at Kingscliff North near Jack Bayliss Park yesterday morning.
Council consulted with NSW National Parks and Wildlife as well as the Byron Tweed Local Aboriginal Land Council and it was agreed that the carcass should be removed from the beach as soon as practical.
The carcass, which was almost 10 metres in size, was moved away from the waterline with Council-owned backhoes during the morning but we were unable to remove the whole whale due to its weight and level of decomposition. Commercial operators, with more suitable equipment, then assisted Council in this operation and the final removal was completed at around 2.30pm yesterday. The carcass was then transported to Stotts Creek Resource Recovery Centre to be buried.
In this instance, Council made the decision not to tow the body of the whale out to sea because it was already beached and this would have been a difficult operation. In addition, Tweed Shire Council is still in the process of developing its policy regarding the disposal of deceased large marine animals on Council-managed land. A procedure regarding the towing of animals into deeper waters will be developed alongside this.
Mayor of Tweed Shire Chris Cherry said Council is aware of community concerns relating to the disposal of whale carcasses on the beach and she is keen for the best outcomes for everyone involved.
"There's never a one-size-fits-all answer in circumstances like this but we try and take advice from all the local knowledge holders and experts. In this case, removing the dead whale and burying it offsite was the option that everyone agreed was the most logical one," Cr Cherry said.
