A dead humpback whale that washed ashore at Fort Abercrombie State Park last week may be there to stay.

The 30-foot, 2-year-old whale was discovered Aug. 14 and has probably been dead three-and-a-half to four weeks, said district park ranger Kevin Murphy.

Murphy said Fort Abercrombie staff have two main concerns about the whale.

“The Marine Mammal Protection Act, and more importantly, the Endangered Species Act protects those guys, even after death,” he said. “So collection of soft or hard parts, bone or baleen or blubber is illegal.”

Murphy said tampering with an endangered species comes with a hefty $25,000 fine. He said that information is posted around the park, because there have been some bones disappearing from the carcass over the past week.

Murphy said there is another concern about the whale that might pose a public safety risk.

“We could potentially develop a situation, that we haven’t yet, where the local bears discover it,” he said. “Since that hasn’t happened, we’re just kind of monitoring the situation at this point.”

If it does happen, however, Murphy said park rangers would most likely start posting warnings about approaching the whale and possibly close that section of the trail.

Murphy said the carcass is unlikely to be removed from the beach unless the high tide carries it out to sea.

“After tomorrow’s high tide, wherever it parks is probably where it’s going to land,” he said. “There is a remote chance that it could float free, but I don’t think it will. It’ll probably anchor itself there.”

He said park staff looked into the possibility of having the whale professionally removed from the beach last week but that didn’t turn out to be a feasible option.

“We determined that it would be a challenge that probably couldn’t be met,” Murphy said. “There are a lot of reefs out in front of that rocky outcrop of the beach, and there’s a pretty good chance it would just break up if we tried to throw a line around it.”

Murphy said if the tide fails to move the whale, which is decaying rapidly, it will likely remain on the beach and continue to decompose.

“Once it deflates, it’ll just look like a big piece of carpet laying on top of a lot of skeletal remains,” he said. “And those are protected.”

Murphy said a group of researchers is working to determine whether the whale is one of three humpbacks killed by a pod of orcas near the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula.

“It’s not 100 percent. But the theory right now is that it’s one of (those whales),” he said. “The fact that its lower jaw is missing is one indication of that. It’s an area that orcas attack to kind of go after the tongue.”

Bree Witteveen, a marine mammal researcher with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Fishery Industrial Technology Center in Kodiak, said it is too soon to jump to that conclusion.

“There was some evidence that it had been predated on,” Witteveen said. “But it’s difficult to say whether that might have happened before or after it died.”

She said given the unusual number of humpbacks washing ashore this summer, noting the one at Fort Abercrombie, three in the Prince William Sound area and two on Sitkinak, there is speculation among researchers that a toxin in the water may be affecting the whales.

Researchers collected fecal samples from the whale at Fort Abercrombie and sent them for analysis to determine the cause of death.

“There are some theories bouncing around that these animals are being weakened by a toxin, and it’s increasing their susceptibility to being attacked by killer whales,” Witteveen said. “The toxin isn’t necessarily killing them, but it’s weakening them enough so that they’re vulnerable.”

Murphy said that until more is known, there is no cause for concern and no danger to park visitors.

“It’s doing OK now. It’s a bit of an attraction,” he said. “No public safety issues, other than the fact that you can’t touch it.”

Mirror writer Erik Wander can be reached via e-mail at ewander@kodiakdailymirror.com.