Dragged to Its Grave

By KEVIN McMONAGLE

THE beached sperm whale is dragged to its final resting place yesterday on the Irish beach where it died.

A 20ft pit was dug for the 14-tonne mammal at Magheraroarty Beach in Gweedore, Co Donegal, after it washed up last week.

Experts said the 45ft creature, which was old and weak, was too ill to be moved and it died on Saturday morning.

The grave was unmarked but still dozens of people turned out yesterday to the beach.

Joe Gatins, of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, said: “The animal may have been failing for some time and instinctively realised it needed to get to shore to die. Once it got beached where it did there was very little we could do.

“We knew it would most likely not make it through the weekend so we decided to let it die naturally.

“But we didn’t want people trying to get close and adding to the animal’s misery and we didn’t want people cutting huge lumps out of it as souvenirs.”

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