Reports of the beached whale started coming in Sunday morning. MERR, a Lewes-based nonprofit, responded to the area and set up a perimeter. Hundreds of people came to the beach to see the ocean's second-largest whale.

The Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute said a 50-foot fin whale washed up along the beach Sunday in Delaware near the Indian River Inlet.

Fin whales are an off-shore, deep-sea species that would not typically come near the shore unless they are weak, experts say.

The whale is emaciated and very sick, says Suzanne Thurman says, director of the Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute.