Dead whale found drifting off La Jolla Lifeguards towed in the carcass of a 45-foot dead whale drifting a mile away from Boomer Beach in La Jolla on Saturday, Feb. 14. Lifeguards towed the whale, believed to be either a fin or sei, to Fiesta Island where NOAA experts swiped blubber and skin samples for DNA tests to help determine the species. The thoroughly rotted whale carcass was then loaded onto a truck and towed to the Miramar Landfill on Sunday morning. “It’s either one of those two species,” said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “They’re very similar in appearance but the animal had decomposed.” The whale had been slashed but it’s unclear whether the injury was from a ship’s propeller or from another animal, like a shark or scavenging birds, he said. “We’ll probably never determine that,” said Cordaro, who estimated that the whale had been dead two weeks or more. An average of seven dead gray whales are found floating along the California coast each year, not uncommon since the species annually migrates south. But only two or three whales of other whale species are discovered dead along the state coast each year, Cordaro said. In total, seven types of whales populate the California coastal waters, including the blue whale, gray whale, humpback whale, fin whale, sei whale, sperm whale and the rare Bryde’s whale. The online Los Angeles Times science page features a video of the dead mammal.