LITTLE COMPTON — With help from a hired excavator, officials at Briggs Beach on Saturday buried a dead humpback whale that had been decomposing for nearly a week.

The state’s other beached whale, which had washed ashore near Sakonnet Point on June 16, was allowed to drift out to sea with Thursday’s high tide.

The Briggs Beach whale, about 25 feet long and weighing an estimated 2 to 3 tons, had washed ashore on June 14 and was in water that was 2 to 5 feet deep, but the private beach association managed to bury the animal during low tide, despite problems with waves and incoming water, said Ron Bogle, manager of the private beach.

“We gave it our best shot,” Bogle said. “We got it buried as best we could.”

The second whale washed ashore near Sakonnet Point and Round Pond on Tuesday. Reportedly a female pilot whale, it was about 14 feet long and estimated to weigh around 1,500 pounds. It got trapped in shallow water and died minutes later, eyewitnesses said.

That whale was disposed of Thursday, when staff members from the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration cut the carcass loose from lines that were holding it in place and let the tide carry the body out to sea, said Becky Giantonio, assistant director of media and public relations for the Mystic Aquarium.

Staffers had originally planned to bury the Sakonnet Point whale on the beach, she said, and even had the grave dug. But the tide that came in that day was faster and stronger than expected, so they decided to let the ocean do the disposal work instead. She said as of Sunday, there had been no renewed sightings of that whale.

The Briggs Beach burial was expected to cost the beach association about $1,500. Even so, Bogle said the project might have gone better if the association had paid for more excavators.

“We could have used two or three,” he said.

— Randal Edgar and John Hill