Dead whale stinks up Ocean City, N.J.

A dead whale just offshore at Ocean City, N.J., pervaded the city with a harsh rotting odor, officials say. Initially, it appeared Monday the whale was alive and stuck in shallow water, and simply needed to be pushed back out to sea. Once the stench set in, however, residents soon realized the whale was dead and swiftly decomposing. "Oh yeah, it's dead. It's been dead for a long time," Sheila Dunn, co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Police roped off the beach. "We'll try to get it on the beach," Ocean City spokesman Mark Soifer said. "We'd have to cut it into pieces and haul it away. "We all feel sorry for the whale."