Since the corpse of a strange creature washed ashore at Ocean Beach Park in New London Sunday, park manager Dave Sugrue has been fielding phone calls from people asking him about it. Others, including a television crew, have come down to look for the bloated, beaked carcass.  

“We’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It’s a good distraction from the stock market,” he said.

People have speculated that it is a leopard seal, peccary or even an experiment gone bad at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. It resembles a similar animal that washed ashore on Long Island this summer and was dubbed the Montauk Monster.

Sugrue said he’s not sure where the animal, discovered by the Clapsadle family of Waterford, is now. He said it may have washed back into the ocean or been thrown in the trash by a park employee. He said lots of things came ashore in the weekend storm.

Becky Giantonio, the spokeswoman for Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, said the aquarium did not go to look at the carcass because its marine stranding team decided that it was not any type of marine mammal, such a seal or sea turtle, that it would care for or investigate. She said the aquarium made the decision after seeing the animal had sharp teeth, legs and a tail.  After examining photos of the animal Sunday night, Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center director Maggie Jones said  that she was pretty certain the animal was a raccoon. 

Still people are having fun with the story.

“I think I saw some CIA guys walking around her today,” Sugrue joked this morning.

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