“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it an explosion, but it can be like an enormous fart. It would be quite unpleasant if the stomach blows up. It’s not very nice to have rotten whale parts showering over you.” These comments were made by Tore Haug of the Norwegian Marine Research Institute in Bergen as he [...]

In this AP photo, the giant, swollen tongue of a dead humpback whale appears close to exploding. Alas, it did not. The ballooning organ did, however, contribute to the whale’s death. While some officials initially said the swollen tongue indicated an infection, experts now believe that a large volume of air may have been forced [...]

Way up in the northwestern corner of Oregon is the small town of Clatskanie. Despite being over 200 miles away from where Oregon’s infamous whale made its debut, it lays claim to its own unique connections to the Exploding Whale. In an editorial in The Clatskanie Chief, publisher and editor Deborah Steele Hazen writes, “There [...]

Register-Guard columnist and perennial exploding whale enthusiast Bob Welch has once again referenced Oregon’s exploding whale in one of his columns. In “Dozer, not dynamite, eases whale’s final passage” — part of his “Where are they now?” series — Welch discusses the fate of the 40-foot gray whale that recently washed up on Oregon’s coast [...]