{"id":616038,"date":"2026-09-30T05:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616038\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T05:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:02:11","slug":"how-to-get-rid-of-a-costly-whale-of-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616038\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get rid of a costly whale of a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

It turns out, removing tonnes of organic material from a beach isn’t an easy task.<\/p>\n

Just ask the Town of Cambridge in Perth.<\/p>\n

When a dead 13-metre-long whale, weighing an estimated 31 tonnes, washed ashore at City Beach in the early hours of Monday morning, a public holiday no less, the council has no easy fix.<\/p>\n

As the sun rose, the carcass decayed, and the waves carried its scent into open waters, luring sharks toward one of Perth’s most popular beaches and closing it to swimmers.<\/p>\n

\"Crowds<\/p>\n

Crowds have descended on the beach to look at the carcass.<\/p>\n

ABC News<\/p>\n

Disposing of whale carcasses is a logistical ordeal. It’s heavy, stinky, and expensive.<\/p>\n

Experts say this is how it should, and shouldn’t, be done.<\/p>\n

An explosive solution<\/p>\n

One method officials probably won’t consider was put into practice a few decades ago in the town of Florence in the US state of Oregon.<\/p>\n

About 20 cases of dynamite, or 450 kilograms’ worth, was used to dispose of a much smaller whale carcass, with predictable results.<\/p>\n

Chunks of blubber flew into the air, and a car parked almost half a kilometre away was caved in by falling debris.<\/p>\n

Granted, it was the 1970s, and the world learned a lot from that one experience, namely, don’t blow up whale carcasses.<\/p>\n

Western Australia, however, recently used much smaller explosive charges to humanely euthanase sick or stranded whales.<\/p>\n

Modern disposal methods<\/p>\n

The prevailing wisdom is to tow carcasses back out to sea or carry them to the dump, according to University of Western Australia marine biologist Kate Sprogis.<\/p>\n

\"Kate<\/p>\n

Kate Sprogis says the whale’s death was not unusual, as it happened during the migration season.<\/p>\n

ABC News \/ Cason Ho<\/p>\n

“If it’s a big swell, big weather, big wind, and they can’t get a boat out or a large enough boat to tow it, then landfill might be an option,” Dr Sprogis said.<\/p>\n

Regardless, it’s likely to be expensive, as Town of Cambridge mayor Gary Mack said he has been warned.<\/p>\n

In 2014, it cost AU$188,000 to clean up a whale carcass on Scarborough Beach. Then-mayor Giovanni Italiano convinced the state government to pay half.<\/p>\n

But typically, the local council foots the bill, and the longer it takes to get rid of the mess, the longer the beach needs to stay closed.<\/p>\n

“Any sort of large animal like that, full of blubber, is really attractive for sharks,” Sprogis said.<\/p>\n

\"Carcasses<\/p>\n

Carcasses provide researchers with valuable samples.<\/p>\n

ABC News \/ Courtney Withers<\/p>\n

Migration season<\/p>\n

The lone whale carcass on City Beach’s shores isn’t an unexpected occurrence, according to Sprogis, who said the months of September and October are typically a time of migration for humpback whales.<\/p>\n

“During this time, there’s a whole range of reasons why some of them end up dying,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sprogis said a necropsy is typically required to determine the cause of death, but if there aren’t obvious signs of trauma on the carcass, the whale could have died from natural causes.<\/p>\n

“When they die, they generally float on the surface. Their body gets filled with gases,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If there’s, say, a big wind, say a westerly wind, it might push the animals onto the shore if they’re floating.”<\/p>\n

The death of a whale isn’t all bad, and carcasses can still yield important samples for researchers.<\/p>\n

But Sprogis warned that decomposition was a problem.<\/p>\n

“As soon as it starts decomposing and breaking down, that’s when the number of samples is reduced, because a lot of analysis in the lab can only be done with fresh samples,” she said.<\/p>\n

The dead whale, which has drawn hundreds of onlookers over the past two days, is expected to be removed from the beach Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It turns out, removing tonnes of organic material from a beach isn’t an easy task. Just ask the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-616038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}