Beached Whale

[angleseydiver]

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Highlands and Islands | Monster task disposing of whale


Pity they've ruled out this option

[Okeanos]

We had a dead 7m Minke Whale on a local beach recently, I managed to get a photo of it in a local paper.

[Stephen]

This reminds me of when I lived up in that area in the late seventies/early eighties. There was a big sperm whale stranded. I wont go into the horrific early bit but once it was dead the local authorities decided they would dismember it with explosives before burying it in the sand with the help of a JCB.
I was up there to help recover the lower jaw/teeth which were being damaged by attempts to extract them.

So they stuck a few sticks of explosives by the whale and we retreated to cover. A load bang but nothing else.

So a few more sticks of explosives weere used - retreat to cover - load bang but nothing else- whale still intact.

Next they put whole carrier bags of explosives under the whale - dug in by the JCB - We retreated well out of danger - an enormois explosion but they whale did no more than shiver slightly and was completely intact. At that stage they had broken a few windows in the nearby village so they gave up on the explosives and intended to bury it whole. Whales are huge shock-absorbers, explosives are not necessarily a great idea.

[G man]

I saw a video of the disposal of a whale, much the same as you explained but they put a huge ammount of explosives under it the lot went bang. Everyone came out to look then 10 or 20 seconds later the blubber started raining down on everyone and some quite big pieces too.

Not sure but I think a few got hurt by the bits falling.

G.

[sog]

love that exploding whale video, it all started to go wrong when the guy says " we werent sure how much explosive to use" or words to that affect...can imagine them saying "lets chuck another box on , just to make sure... "
"yeah ok ....and one more for luck!"

i seem to remember a story about a dead whale (shark?) exploding on the back of a lorry as it expanded in the heat "coating" the gathered crowd.

[Oonasdivers]

And for those that didn't see it

[angleseydiver]

Well done!
I did post a link in my OP but yours is a better quality vid-