Whale carcass shuts Sydney's Newport beach

SYDNEY (AAP) - A massive sperm whale has surprised experts by washing up on a popular Sydney beach, and oil oozing from the carcass into the sea is attracting sharks.
Fearing an attack, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has closed Newport Beach while authorities struggle to clean up the 20-tonne mess.
The beach will remain closed for at least a week after the job is done.
"I have never seen a full-grown sperm whale on a Sydney Beach, and I have been in this job nearly 20 years," said Geoff Ross from the NPWS.
"You do find calf carcasses every now and then but it's very rare to see a big adult sperm whale come ashore."
Mr Ross said it had been difficult to remove the 10-metre-long whale, which appeared on a rock platform at the northern Sydney beach on Tuesday.
"The difficulty is that usually we tow it back out to sea, but this particular animal has no tail," Mr Ross told AAP on Thursday.
"Sperm whales are really oily creatures ... so you have a hard time keeping ropes on a carcass. So when sharks come along and chew it all off, it makes it bloody hard."
Over the next two days, officials will cut up the carcass and take the pieces to local waste facilities.
Sperm whales are deep sea animals and usually hunt at least 14km offshore, making the appearance extremely rare.
Mr Ross said the NPWS wasn't sure what had killed the creature, but its body was riddled with huge holes which one could "almost crawl through", most likely caused by great white or tiger sharks.
Newport resident Ashley Willcox said the whale had drawn flocks of sightseers.
"It's become a local tourist attraction ... There are so many people going down there to have a look at it, even in the pouring rain," she told AAP, adding the smell wasn't quite as alluring.
"It just smells bad. Like lots of dead fish."
Not all of the whale will go to waste. Its jawbone will soon find a home at the Australian Museum in Sydney.
"We've asked them to give us the lower jaw bone and some tissue samples," Dr Sandy Ingleby, collection manager of mammals at the museum said.
The specimens, which will take a couple of months to prepare for display, could give insight into the genetics and toxicity levels of sperm whales.
Newport beach will be closed for at least a week after the carcass is removed to avoid possible encounters between swimmers and sharks drawn by the oil.