• Question: Whats the best way to remove a washed up whale on a beach?

    Asked by ryaanngibbz to Jamie, Jodie, Kat, Mark, Niamh on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hello ryaangibbz,

      That is an interesting question and one I dont know the answer to! It depends what type of whale it is and if it is dead or not I would think? A small Mike whale could get hauled out/pushed in by mechanical i.e. tractor/cranes, although they need to be careful about damaging internal organs I seem to remember reading about a rescue effort of a whale found in the Thames in London recently.

      If huge and dead, a tricky problem! Chop up and haul off? Dont know!

    • Photo: Mark Hill

      Mark Hill answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hello again Ryanngibbz,

      I honestly don’t know…
      …put it in a ‘whaley bin’?

      I am more into ‘Compare the wheels.com’ rather than ‘Compare the whales.com’
      Simples.

      Mark

    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi Ryan

      Don’t really know the answer to that one … if its alive you can try and refloat it and encourage it to swim back out to sea. If its dead, the vets usually do a post mortem and then I guess chop it up for disposal.. bit of a big job !.

    • Photo: Jodie Dunnett

      Jodie Dunnett answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      If the whale is alive, then you want to get it back into the water as quickly as possible (but without harming it). I think that rescuers usually dig trenches to try and get the sea to surround the whale and naturally wash it back in. If the whale has died then I don’t really know the best way – I’m sure I have seen YouTube clips of them being blown up but this causes a massive mess and I wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for clearing it up!

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