Author: Alexandra Pleffer

April 19, 2013

Footage has emerged of the guts of a dead whale exploding out of its side as workers patiently chopped up its carcass to remove it from a beach.

The video from an episode of the Science Channel’s Outrageous Acts of Science shows the removal of a whale from a Netherlands beach which took almost a week.

But as they sliced into the whale, built-up gas in its stomach began to cause problems.

“This whale before it died ate a lot of things,” biologist Adam Ruben said on the show.

“It ate a lot of other creatures and those creatures started to putrify in its stomach and released a lot of gases when they did and so this whale has a tremendous build-up of gas.”

Nuclear chemist Alistair Linsell said there were three toxic and foul-smelling gases likely to be coming out of the whale.

“You’re going to have methane which is basically farts, hydrogen sulphide which is rotten eggs and you’re going to have ammonia which smells a lot like cat pee,” he said.

Biologist Carin Bondar said the whale was up to 16m long and weighed up to 40 tonnes, making it very difficult to remove from the beach.

“There’s no animal cruelty going on here whatsoever,” she said.

“This whale has been dead for a long time.”

The bones from the whale’s carcass are now on display in a local museum.

news.ninemsn.com.au   *VIDEO*

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