Work is underway to remove the massive carcass of the Fin Whale that washed up at Fistral Beach on Wednesday.

Cornwall Council, as the beach owner, has bought in specialist heavy machinery including a truck and a digger to dismantle the 54ft whale.

The unitary authority has closed off the beach whilst the whale is removed as a safety precaution and people are being warned to stay away.

Experts say there are organisms still living on the deceased whale and the blood can be toxic. 

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network has carried out a post mortem on the juvenile Fin Whale.

Samples taken from the animal are being analysed to determine a cause of death.

Anthea Hawtrey-Collier, Project Officer for the Marine Strandings Network said the whale was in a “really poor nutritional state” and "was not a well animal."

The Trust said it could be weeks before the results of the post-mortem examination were known.

The huge juvenile Fin Whale had been spotted off the Cribbar on Town Headland on Tuesday behaving strangely as if it was ill before the animal stranded the following day.

Experts examine the stranded Fin Whale (Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network)

The Fin Whale is the second-longest species on Earth, after the blue whale, and are normally found in deep, offshore waters, primarily in temperate to polar latitudes.

The largest fin whales are reportedly capable of growing to a length of 27.3 metres long, with a maximum confirmed length of 25.9 metres. 

Described by American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews as the 'greyhound of the sea', the fin whale, regarded as vulnerable on the conservation status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It was heavily hunted during the 20th century, leading to it being regarded as endangered. 

The scale of loss is staggering; over 725,000 fin whales were reportedly taken from the Southern Hemisphere between 1905 and 1976 and by 1997, it is believed only 38,000 survived. Despite a moratorium on commercial hunting issued by the International Whaling Commission, the species are still hunted by Iceland and Japan. 

With a maximum recorded weight of 74 tonnes and a maximum estimated weight of 114 tonnes, the fin whales preferred food comprises of small schooling fish, squid and crustaceans including copepods and krill. 

They are often seen in all major oceans from polar to tropical waters, with the exception of waters close to the pack ice at the poles and small areas of water away from the open ocean.