Onlookers in the popular tourist spot of Sidi Bou Said, near Tunis, were shocked on Sunday to see a nearly 13 meter whale being dragged ashore.

Fisherman Mohamed Abdel Mounem Belhassen told Tunisia Live that a 12.8 meter, nine ton whale was caught in his nets close to the presidential palace in Carthage.

The whale died, Belhassen said, when his nets prevented the mammal from surfacing to breathe in water eight to nine meters deep, one kilometer off the coast.

Eventually, larger boats and a rented truck helped Belhassen drag the whale ashore in Sidi Bou Said.

“If we were in a developed country, the whale would have survived,” Belhassen said. “They would have taken care of it, it is a living creature.”

The dead mammal was a fin whale, known to live in the Mediterranean, according to Mohamed Ali Ben Temessek, a marine biology specialist. They can grow to be between 20 and 24 meters and are endangered, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The whales currently suffer habitat problems, Temessek added.

During the winter, the whales migrate between Italy and Tunisia in search of shellfish, according to Sami Mahmani, president of Houtiyat, a Tunisian marine mammal protection organization.

While rare, whales have previously turned up in the Mediterranean. In February 2012, a 12-meter, 15 ton sperm whale washed up on Sidi Daoud Beach in Tunisia. In 2010, a grey whale appeared off the coast of Israel.

According to Belhassen and a National Guard officer who refused to be named, the whale was to be brought to Raoued and buried. Later on, the skeleton will be put in a marine wildlife museum, said Mahmani.