Shark warning issued for Clarence River after whale carcass removed

A marine biologist has warned that the removal of a juvenile humpback whale carcass from the Clarence River may attract sharks to the area.

The carcass was found dead on a sandbar near Iluka on the Mid North Coast on Saturday afternoon and was removed on Sunday afternoon.

Macquarie University marine biologist Culum Brown said the smell of the carcass would linger. "If it's been there for that long it will already be leaching all sorts of good smells into the river and the surrounds, and the sharks will certainly be able to smell that for a long way," he said.

"I would be making sure that nobody was swimming in the river or the adjacent beaches. My advice would be to stay out of the water for the next week or so, which is not what people want to hear on the long weekend."

Dr Brown said he was surprised that the whale had travelled 11 kilometres up the river. "That doesn't happen every day," he said.

"To get that far up a river is very strange, it makes me wonder if perhaps a mother and calf did come into the mouth and perhaps the mother turned away and the baby kept going."

ORRCA, a volunteer whale rescue organisation, was notified about the whale at 1:30pm on Saturday. An ORRCA spokesperson said there were concerns that the juvenile humpback may have been stranded, but volunteers found it deceased.

Footage of the deceased whale was recorded by Brooms Head photographer Amiria Takarangi. She said filming the animal it was unsettling. "It felt wrong, honestly. But I reminded myself why I do this — to show compassion, to understand, and to share whatever knowledge I can gather," Ms Takarangi said.