Efforts will continue on Wednesday to free a whale stranded on a Gold Coast beach.

A resident alerted authorities about the whale about 7pm on Tuesday night, after spotting it near the Palm Beach shoreline.

Sea World staff are involved in the rescue effort, and hope to use a harness to tow it back out to sea.

“It’s pretty dangerous. This animal is probably around 15 to 20 tonne. Once the tide starts to come in, which it’s doing now, you can’t really get close to the animal because it could roll, it could lift it’s tail,” Sea World spokesman Trevor Long told the ABC.

“So we’d ask that no-one goes down there and tries to get close to the animal.”