Fifty years ago this November, the residents of Florence, Oregon learned how not to dispose of a dead whale We recently posted about the burial of a dead humpback whale on the beach in Atlantic City. This was the correct way to dispose of a dead whale’s carcass.
Fifty-three years ago, in Florence, OR, local officials attempted to dispose of a beached whale carcass the wrong way. Rather than cut up and bury the carcass, they decided to use dynamite to blow it up. While, no doubt, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time, it wasn’t. The explosives blasted large chunks of decayed whale skyward, raining down on curious bystanders, and even crushing a nearby parked car. The moment was caught on video and has since been memorialized on YouTube (see below.)
“The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds,” Paul Linnman, a journalist for the television station KATU.
In 2020, the city of Florence dedicated a park at the site of the explosion, asking residents to suggest a name for the new park. More than half of the final tally — 439 out of 856 responses — voted for “Exploding Whale Memorial Park.”