Removing a decaying whale carcass from the Kahuku shoreline yesterday was a difficult and smelly task that ended with a bizarre twist when salvaged whale bones fell off a pickup truck at a busy Kane'ohe intersection.

The stench — think of a rat that's been dead in your wall for days, only a thousand times worse — could be detected a quarter-mile away.

Starting at dawn, government workers and volunteers tied nets and ropes around the whale and pulled it from shoreline rocks onto land.

An excavator put the carcass into a trash bin and the pieces were later buried.

"Moving it was like trying to move Jell-O that smelled," said excavator operator David Ching of Alliance Contracting LLC.

It looked more like a gooey blob than a sperm whale. Some workers smeared Vicks VapoRub under their noses to combat the smell while others tried to stay upwind.

Ocean safety officials kept the beach closed yesterday while the crew aboard Honolulu Fire Department's Air One helicopter kept a watch for sharks. They didn't spot any, but a 12-foot shark was seen near the carcass during high tide Wednesday.

City Emergency Services spokesman Bryan Cheplic said the two-mile stretch of beach from Kahuku to the old airport runway could reopen today.

David Schofield, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said decaying whale carcasses are typically taken 40 miles out to sea.

That wasn't possible because this carcass was stuck on rocks. "It was like a lava catcher's mitt," he said. "There was lava on top and lava all around it."

The carcass was pulled off the shore by employees of NOAA and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawai'i Pacific University students and teachers, and area residents.

Schofield said the whale was too decayed for tissue samples that could reveal what killed it. And too many bones were damaged while hauling the whale off the rocks to show if it had been hit by a ship.

Sperm whales are an endangered species and the bones cannot be removed without a permit. However, students and teachers from HPU had permission to take some of the bones.

"We can learn what these whales eat and also, because we found a tooth, how old this one was," said Kristi West, an HPU professor.

As the bones were being taken back to HPU's Windward campus, some fell out of a pickup truck onto Kahekili Highway in Kane'ohe and caused a traffic slowdown, West said. (See story about that and other Windward traffic jams on Page B1.)

Andy Ramos of Kane'ohe brought his 1-year-old grandson, Tytan Preston, to watch the carcass removal. Two weeks ago he showed up at the area to dive, but was turned away because of sharks spotted near the carcass.

"I never saw the sharks," he said, "but I wanted to see how they'd take this away."

Jeff Walters of DLNR said landowner Continental Pacific donated a burial spot for the carcass just across Kamehameha Highway. A grave about 30 feet deep and 60 feet long was dug and a prayer ceremony was held as the remains were buried.

"The scent shouldn't linger more than a few days," Schofield said.

He estimated the cost of the removal at $10,000 to $15,000 and said it would be split by DLNR and NOAA.

"This was a difficult removal," he said. "The toughest I've ever been associated with."

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

If you see a whale carcass or other large carcass at sea, call the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at 888-256-9840. Call right away because it is easier to take carcasses far out to sea before they wash ashore.

David Schofield of NOAA and Jeff Walters of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources both said yesterday they would have preferred to tow the sperm whale's carcass out to sea before it reached land, but by the time the carcass was located it had already run aground.

"The reports we were getting were always a day or days late," Schofield said. "There was video of sharks feeding on it at sea that was given to TV stations, but nobody called us. We learned about it late and every time we went to look it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack out there."

If you spot a carcass and call NOAA, Schofield said: "Stay with it until we get there if possible. Our preference is to always take it out to sea."

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