Contributed Photo Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint and the Devil’s Elbow beach north of Florence have been closed until further notice due to the presence of a dead whale. The species has been identified as a fin whale.

The beach below the Heceta Head Lighthouse north of Florence remains closed today due to a whale beaching.

The dead fin whale washed on shore at Devil’s Elbow beach Sunday. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew spotted the whale at about 1 p.m. Friday two miles north of Siuslaw River. The whale was alive and stranded on a sand bar, though as the tide came up Friday, it was able to get free and started swimming. Jim Rice, the marine mammal stranding coordinator with the Marine Mammal Institute of Oregon State University in Newport, said he wasn’t confident the whale would make it.

“It probably had a health problem if it came to shore and being stranded would have exacerbated the condition further,” he said. “It wasn’t swimming terribly well and it was swimming parallel to the beach.”

The whale also was bleeding as it swam along.

Officials lost track of the whale after sunset Friday. Late Saturday afternoon, they received a report of a beached whale near Sea Lion Caves. Sunday it was near the Heceta Head State Scenic Viewpoint.

Jan Hodder, an associate professor at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, said the fin whale is not as common as the gray and humpback varieties. It also won’t come to shore unless something is wrong.

She estimated this one was younger, as the species can grow up to 80 feet long. The carcass is about 40 feet long.

Rice said the whale was underweight and has started decomposing rapidly.

The Oregon Parks & Recreation Department closed Heceta Head State Scenic Viewpoint and the Devil’s Elbow beach. Officials want to keep people away so biologists can evaluate the carcass.

“We don’t know what sort of pathogens are on the carcass,” Rice said.