A dead whale has washed up on the beach at Fort Morgan on the Alabama coast.

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab confirmed a sperm whale carcass washed up along the shore in Fort Morgan, WKRG-TV reported. Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency officials told the station that crews were responding to calls of a beached whale on Sunday afternoon.

Beachgoers noticed the whale early Sunday morning near the Beach Club Resort & Spa in Fort Morgan, following heavy storms in the area over the weekend.

It’s unusual but not unprecedented. Typically only two sperm whales a year ever beach in the entire Gulf of Mexico, according to Dr. Ruth Carmichael, marine biologist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

In November 2020, a sperm whale estimated at 35 to 40 feet long wandered into Mobile Bay, struggling to survive. Biologists euthanized the sperm whale in Mobile Bay on Nov. 25, 2020.

Dauphin Island Sea Lab officials said in 2020 that it was the first documented stranded sperm whale in the state of Alabama. The whales are used to deep water but the bay averages only about 10 feet deep outside the shipping channel.

Male sperm whales can reach up to 62 feet in length, females can be up to 39 feet long, and they are known as deep divers, commonly reaching a depth of about 1,150 feet. A 60-foot-long male sperm whale weighs more than 50 tons. Sperm whales may dive for an hour or more, then spend about 10 minutes at the surface breathing once every 10 seconds. They feed on octopus and squid.