Residents of Mangaia woke up to an unusual sight yesterday morning after a dead baby whale washed ashore at the harbour.

Island mayor Anthony Whyte said he initially thought someone had left a pile of sand, but upon closer inspection, he discovered a dead calf about two to three metres in length.

Whyte believes the calf washed ashore overnight.

“There were cut marks on it, which we assume may have been from rolling along the reef, but there was no evidence of the baby whale being attacked, so we couldn’t really determine the cause of death,” he said.

The carcass was removed from the lagoon using an excavator and buried inland, said Whyte.

However, not before some island residents helped themselves to chunks of meat for “tasting”.

According to an island resident who wished to remain anonymous, “At 7am when I went to look at it at the harbour, I saw people cutting up the whale for meat to eat. I was mad at them for doing that, even the other people got mad when they saw them cutting up the whale.”

The person said a visitor from Rarotonga told the people that whale meat tasted like “steak”.

Whyte said he heard about some residents cutting up the dead baby whale and “taking slices of meat home to have a taste”.

He urged residents to be careful and not to eat the meat of the dead whale, as it could be contaminated.

“I thought that was crazy because we don’t know the cause of the death … there could be some sick people on Mangaia in the coming days.”

Whyte said there have been a lot of whales swimming past the harbour in the past couple of weeks, but the discovery yesterday was “very unusual and a sad one”.

Last week, a New Zealand fur seal visited the island. Whyte said the visit was so short and quick that he couldn’t even take a picture.