Animals – “We saw her hundreds of meters away. It was like a mountain. » On Thursday March 14, a strange black mass floating on the Norwegian island of Andoya, 300 kilometers from the Arctic Circle, attracted the curiosity of a group of fishermen, who discovered that it was the carcass of a humpback whale about to explode.
“I have been a fisherman for 27 years, but I have never seen anything like this. I have seen whale carcasses in the water and on land, but like this”Norwegian daily Dagbladet confirmed to Dag Rydland, one of several local media interested in the images of the find, which were immediately published on the fisherman’s Facebook account. And which you can find in the video at the top of the article.
Fishermen admit they did not linger around the bloated whale, fearing it would explode. A popular fear is partly scientifically based, but examples are extremely rare despite a few well-publicized cases and viral videos that have stirred up social networks in recent years.
A “terrible” smell
Swelling on whale carcasses is an impressive phenomenon, but overall insignificant.
“A dead whale will begin to decompose about 24 hours after death. Deprived of oxygen, the cells die. Bacteria then begin to decompose the internal organs, aided by the ambient heat maintained within the body due to the insulating effectiveness of the layer of blubber covering the whale. Bacterial activity produces gases that remain trapped in the animal”The Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals of Quebec (GREMM) explains.
Since Thursday 14 March, Norwegian scientists have been able to examine the corpse off the coast of Andoya Island. They don’t worry about explosions, the gases mostly dissipate slowly through the gaps. “But if someone brings a big knife, for example, and stabs it, an explosion can occur,” Nils Oen, a humpback whale expert and researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, told public media NRK. .
For residents of the village of Bleek, the beach where the body was found, the main threat remains the smell. “Terrible” That giant mammals spread after their death. “I can’t describe it, but it’s definitely not a perfume,” says Nils Øien. There is no shortage of irony given the use of whalebones in the cosmetics industry…
Already in 2014, a 17 m long fin whale stranded on a beach in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Boches-du-Rhône) attracted media attention and raised fears of an explosion. The carcass was eventually removed and transferred to a rendering center.
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