A British documentary titled “The Whale that Exploded in the Street,” will be airing in the United States on December 13 and 15 on the National Geographic channel (aka “NatGeo”) under the shortened title, “The Whale that Exploded.” The documentary explores the explosion of a 50-ton sperm whale carcass that was being transported through the Taiwan city of Tainan on a flatbed truck in January 2004. The explosion flooded a city street with gallons of blood and piles of intestines.

The documentary is of particular interest since the producers asked for permission to use screenshots of this website’s page documenting the event.

The show is schedule to air as part of NatGeo’s “Wild” series at the following times:

• December 13, 2008, at 8pm
• December 15, 2008, at 8am

See the the program’s page on the NatGeo TV website for more information.

Update: Monsters and Critics also a brief mention of the program.

Today, November 12, 2008, is the 38th anniversary of Oregon’s Exploding Whale. Some years this date almost passes by unnoticed. But not this year.

It is perhaps because the events of this day in 1970 stand in such dramatic contrast to the many truly serious events and changes currently taking place in the world — among them, global warming, ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an international economic crisis, the lasting effects of the Bush presidency, and the hope for enduring change under an Obama presidency — that I was, ironically, compelled to lightheartedly celebrate this year’s Exploding Whale anniversary.

So, after you observe the requisite moment of silence for our beloved cetacean detonation, you need to the following:

1. Go watch the original video. (Yeah, I know you’ve seen it before. Go watch it again — it’s a CLASSIC, remember?!?)
2. Now, do something that really matters: go take a look around this interesting site: The World’s Biggest Problems created by The Arlington Institute.

As usual, I’ll update this post with any media coverage of the anniversary….

• The infamous tale of an exploding whale - KATU (same story repeated on KVAL and KOMO)

Happy Exploding Whale Day!

We are excited to announce the second generation Exploding Whale Locator Map featuring Google Maps technology. As the explosions have continued since our original locator map was built, we longed for a more flexible approach that would allow the map to be updated quickly and easily. Google Maps’ My Maps feature was the perfect solution.

The map pinpoints the location of each exploding whale incident and features pop-up information boxes (see sample below) typically containing a brief description of the incident, a photo, and a link to the page or entry on this site with additional information.

You can always find a link to the map in the sidebar on our main page. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about the new Exploding Whale Locator Map.

• Exploding Whale Locator (on theexplodingwhale.com)
• Exploding Whale Locator (on maps.google.com)

This is just further proof that journalists can’t get enough of the Exploding Whale. When there’s nothing else to write about, they can always rely on the old “EW” to meet their deadline.

Peter O’Neill, a writer for the Timaru Herald which is located in the South Canterbury region of New Zealand, recently wrote an article titled, “I just don’t get the great fascination with whales.” The article basically contains a lot of aimless ramblings about whales. Here are a few excerpts so you know what I mean:

We obviously like whales. And when I say “we”, I mean everyone except the Japanese and me.

I don’t think [whales] are particularly pretty or even graceful. I mean, meerkats are cute, monkeys are clever, cheetahs are classy and albatross are graceful, but whales are … blobs.

Maybe the [stranded] orca had sclerosis of the liver. Maybe it was a promiscuous whale with a sexually transmitted disease and had just been kicked out of its pod.

With such inane commentary, O’Neill obviously needed a strong closer. Enter the Exploding Whale:

The other story comes from Florence, Lane County, Oregon, the United States of America. A whale beached itself there and died, and the locals were pondering how to dispose of it in the nicest possible manner.

So they decided to blow it up.

With dynamite.

With 20 cases of dynamite.

He goes on to explain the entire incident and then offers a tongue-in-cheek explanation for why you would never want to watch the video yourself:

This, of course, is not in the least bit funny, so you will not be interested to know it can be viewed by going to www.youtube.com and typing in “Exploding whale”.

In fact, if you did go off and watch it, there would be something wrong with you, wouldn’t there?

And that’s how O’Neill’s article ends. Personally, I failed to see any real point to it other than to fill blank space in the Timaru Herald. But I guess it stands as yet another example of the enduring nature of the Exploding Whale.

• I just don’t get the great fascination with whales - The Timaru Herald

Here’s a video from TheWest.com.au on the Jurien Bay exploding whale. (Note: while the video does show the whale thrashing in the surf, it does not contain any graphic images either during or following the explosion.)

In a sad and gruesome twist, the initial explosive charge set off directly above the brain of a stranded juvenile humpback whale in Western Australia failed to kill the animal.

After the whale continued thrashing for several minutes, a wildlife officer began firing several shots into its head, as can be seen in the photo above. After a total of 15 minutes, a second charge was detonated, finally killing the suffering creature.

This was really the worst possible outcome of the decision to euthanize this stranded whale. Really, once you’ve made that decision, can there be such a thing as using too many explosives? I mean, if your plan is to “put it out of its misery,” then why not just plan to blow it to kingdom come? If you think X pounds of explosives is enough, why not just use 5X for good measure?

And if the explosives didn’t kill it, why would they then think that shooting it full of bullets for 15 minutes was going to finish the job?

The thought processes that lead to this outcome are completely lost on me….

That being said, I truly believe that the wildlife officials involved were trying to act with mercy. Hopefully, the errors made will be exposed so a similar tragedy can be avoided in the future.

• Humpback shot after explosives failed - The West Australian
• Stranded Jurien Bay humpback put down - PerthNow

Update 1-OCT-2008: The official government media release of the operation makes no mention of the complications:

Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) marine wildlife officers this afternoon oversaw an operation to euthanase the animal using a technique approved by the Department’s Animal Ethics Committee. The approved technique involved using charges to cause an implosion above the brain.

• Stranded whale put down - Western Australia Dept. of Environment and Conservation