Reports: Whale carcass that washed up on North Shore twice buried in Swampscott

The humpback whale carcass that washed up in Marblehead in April and again in Swampscott last week has been buried, local outlets reported. 

The whale, which weighed more than 32 tons and was over 40 feet long, was buried at Preston Beach on Saturday, the Marblehead Current reported. 

A video of the burial by the Current shows an excavator digging a hole in the sand before lifting the carcass into it and covering it back up. 

The female whale washed up in a low tide in Marblehead on April 25. It was towed back into the water in an area that would reduce the chances that the carcass would end up back on land, officials said. 

But the same carcass returned to Swampscott just a couple of weeks later and was less decomposed than experts expected. 

It took the town a few days to figure out what to do with the body, which washed up  May 14. On May 16, the town warned residents to stay away from the whale in a Facebook post. The town said both Preston Beach and Phillips Beach, the area where the whale washed up, would be closed until the body was removed and for “at least one tidal cycle after that time.”

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