World's second biggest animal left to rot on Welsh beach

by · Wales Online

The world's second biggest animal is being left to rot on a beach in Carmarthenshire. The 70ft sea creature - which is a very large fin whale - has been at the beach for months now and has been left to decompose after being monitored by sea life experts.

It's understood that when experts first looked at the huge mammal they decided it was beyond the point of a post-mortem examination, and it's been left to rot ever since.

This weekend photographer Liam Matthews came across the massive carcass at Pembrey beach and he said he couldn't believe what he saw.

He said: "It was halfway between Pembrey country park beach and the MOD at Pembrey. Myself and my friend, Matt, saw it on Saturday afternoon on an explore up to the ranges to have a look at the jets up there."

He added that the whale is on a very isolated part of the beach. "We didn't see anyone all day. It was really quite eerie, we literally saw one dude on a kite bike thing."

The "very large" fin whale is believed to be a female but had been dead for some time when it was discovered meaning it was already in a "bad state of decomposition", according to the Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM).

The UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme said it's impossible to really know how long it will take for the carcass to decompose given the sheer size of the creature. You can scroll through the images below to see what it looks like now.

The 70ft fin whale washed up at Pembrey beach earlier this year(Image: Liam Matthews Photography)
The whale, which is in an isolated section of the beach, was assessed by experts who have decided to allow it to decompose where it is(Image: Liam Matthews Photography)
Months on from when it was discovered, the carcass is now reduced to mostly bones(Image: Liam Matthews Photography)