Inflatable whales gathered around Sydney Harbor, Australia, to mark the start of the annual whale migration season in that area.

A popular beach on the Washington coast became home to a dead gray whale, and the state moved quickly to bury the carcass before scores of clam diggers were to arrive just two days later. The 38-foot female was the third whale to wash up in the area in recent years. In the report linked [...]

Details are few, but a humpback whale was euthanized with explosives on September 29, 2010, after stranding on a reef near Struisbaai Harbour, South Africa. It was determined that the 30-foot whale was sick and had little chance of survival. Links to a couple news articles are available on our permanent archive page: South Africa [...]

Thanks to reader David R., we’ve learned about a stranded humpback whale that was euthanized via an explosive charge. The sick 31-foot, 12-ton whale had been stuck in Princess Royal Harbor in southwestern Australia for two weeks. Authorities imposed a 1-km exclusion zone around the whale before detonating a charge directly above the whale’s brain. [...]

According to Oregon state officials, dynamite is not an option being considered for how to dispose of a 40-foot fin whale carcass that washed up on an Oregon beach over the weekend. The carcass came to rest on an easily-accessible beach just a few miles north of where a giant sperm whale corpse washed up [...]