PORT HASTINGS, N.S. – It’s a welcome to Cape Breton that most tourists could do without.

On the east side of the Canso Causeway, below the busy Port Hastings visitor information bureau, lies a decomposing fin whale.

The stench is awful.

Local politician Dwayne MacDonald says visitors to the island are complaining about the smell.

However, MacDonald says nobody seems interested in moving the rotting, 15-metre carcass, which washed ashore last Thursday.

He says the municipality’s chief administrative officer has been talking to provincial and federal agencies.

Coast guard spokesman Stephen Bornais says the whale is the responsibility of province or the municipality because it is above the high-water mark and is not impeding marine traffic.