Lifeguards towing the carcass of a dead whale away from Newport beach, California, had an unexpected visitor - a large great white shark who followed the feast.

The humpback, a well-known whale in the area nicknamed "Scarlet" because of her reddish hue, died of unknown injuries and was being taken away from the coast to avoid her carcass washing ashore.

Shark tagger and conservationist Keith Poe, who recorded the video, said the female great white tore chunks from Scarlet over the course of 18 hours.

"She ate so much she was swimming around upside-down aimlessly like she was intoxicated," he wrote.