A decomposing 60-foot fin whale corpse stranded on the Irish coast had to be abandoned by wildlife researchers looking to study it after concern that the dead mammal could explode.
Experts who were near the body of the dead whale that washed up on the shore on Sunday heard bubbling when they tried to open it to do an autopsy. This led them to believe there was a risk that a build-up of methane gas produced as it decomposed could create enough pressure to send the whale’s innards flying, a phenomenon that has been caught on camera before.
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, an organization that responds to whale strandings in the country, arrived in County Kerry, Ireland, to collect samples of the animal for research after its body washed on the beach on Sunday, according to the Irish Examiner.
While collecting body parts for necropsy at the IWDG’s strandings office, Stephanie Levesque told the Irish Examiner, “we heard some noises and were like, “this is going explode in my faces if I get any deeper.”
The IWDG deemed later that the whale was “not suitable” for post-mortem analysis and abandoned it according to a posting on their website. According to the release, the Kerry city council intends to let the dead whale remain on site as it decomposes.”Unfortunately, this individual was too decomposed for a full post-mortem,” the IWDG wrote. “Stephanie collected a number of samples useful for biological studies but not able to establish cause of death.”
Levesque later told LiveScience that although she had heard “bubbling” noises when collecting samples, the fear that the whale would explode subsided after it was apparent that it would not likely occur. She told LiveScience that the fin whale had been abandoned for safety reasons.
Bloated, dead whales aren’t uncommon though they can produce an unpleasant smell when they do happen. The most extreme method to remove the bodies of whales that have been beached is the use explosives.
–KATU News (@KATUNews) November 12, 2020
A famous example of this occurred in Florence, Oregon, in 1970, when engineers used dynamite to destroy the body of a 45-foot, 8-ton sperm whale. Officials and people gathered to watch the detonation soon discovered that not enough dynamite had been used, resulting in large chunks of whale blubber falling from the sky and covering the town.
The post Wildlife experts abandoned a washed up whale after bubbling noises heard from its gut caused concerns it would explode appeared first on Business Insider.
