Just when the state’s seaside communities thought they had avoided having to dispose of a dead finback whale, it seems the picturesque town of Rockport has won the “reverse lottery.” The deteriorating carcass, which spent most of October drifting around Boston Harbor, has washed up on Rockport’s shore.

Town workers have gone to the site of the whale’s current resting place, just north of Pebble Beach off Penzance Road, to assess the rocky conditions in the area and determine the best way to bury the carcass.