The 54-foot decomposing fin whale that washed up on Barnegat Light’s 19th Street beach Sunday morning was too large to be disposed of in any other way than burying it, advised the director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center who was consulted after the whale washed ashore.

The town’s mayor, commercial scallop fleet owner Kirk Larson, said Monday, “Just the logistics of it, there was no other way we could do it by law.”