The 50 foot long whale was creating quite a stink, literally, after washing up on a busy beach.
After thinking though how to get rid of the giant mammal, town officials decided on the landfill.
And it wasn’t an easy decision.
One is to leave it where it is and let nature take its course. Not an option here as it’s too close to a major city but, an option in remote areas.
The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding group explained the options;
Burying on site is another but, again not possible in this case as we were not able to get plant machinery down to do this and would likely be uncovered by tidal action.
The only other option was to remove it to landfill. Not the nicest place to perform a necropsy but it does allow us to get an accurate weight on an animal that would be too big to weigh anywhere else.
The animal was found to have large wounds near its mouth and dorsal fin. It’s believed a collision with a large ship further out at sea may have led to the whale’s death.