Exploding Whale 50th Anniversary, Remastered [video] | Hacker News Reader

Exploding Whale 50th Anniversary, Remastered [video]

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For those who found the film hilarious and want something with the same energy:

An absurd premise delivered factually and solemnly in a way that would never be considered today.

Dealing with a Rabbit infestation on an Irish isle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW51Faq5WXA

Dealing with illegal Poitín distilling in Ireland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtJMXqvNcxA

The police officer 'tasting' the illegal poitin and the guy with a rifle hunting rabbits who admits it will do nothing to their population numbers but chooses to shoot them anyway still crack me up.

These are the types of content from back then that the famous "the front fell off" video was making fun of.

I was curious about modern best practices. Here's what I've learned.

* In rare circumstances, you can bury the whale on site.

* Towing the whale corpse out to sea can be a hazard for boats.

* Selling marine animal remains is often illegal. If it's brought to a composting facility, it can be a legal liability for that company to sell their compost.

* The best option may be to either tow it to a better spot to rot, or to dump it in a landfill.

https://www.livescience.com/63634-how-to-dispose-dead-whale....

Import a few dozen polar bears and they'll make short work of that whale.

Hilariously enough there is a US Forest Service pamphlet on removing animal carcasses with explosives.

https://intrans.iastate.edu/app/uploads/2018/03/Boom-Boom-Bo...

A whale might have been just a bit too big for this practice, though.

The problem wasn't the method, it was not realizing the blast radius.

Yes far too many people think blasting is a spectator sport, it very much is not.

>If it's brought to a composting facility, it can be a legal liability for that company to sell their compost.

Gotta love how one of the better options on the list is only not an option because regulatory enforcement agencies can't be trusted not to miss the forest for the trees. Sure, you don't want people shooting whales but a municipality disposing of a whale nature dropped in its lap is obviously not what the rule was written for.

I think it speaks volumes about these agencies that "Hi we're here to fine you a bunch of money and maybe screw you out of your business because a local municipality dropped a rotting whale off here 3yr ago and we're assuming everything you've sold since is a marine mammal product and it's up to you to prove otherwise" is considered a foreseeable failure mode that businesses need to avoid.

Do you actually know that there aren't good reasons for the law or is that purely uncharitable speculation on your part?

It's easy to imagine how this might have gone down: Gardener Joe uses animal carcass compost but it stinks to high heaven, poisons the water, attracts the wrong kind of scavengers, etc. People ask him to stop but he's not bothered by the problems nearly as much as they are, he's convinced it makes his grapes taste great, and he refuses to stop. Eventually the community forces the issue with a law. In this case it would not be a meaningless law and anyone who repealed it would get to learn the same lesson all over again.

The law is obviously good. We don't want there to be an incentive to harm marine mammals.

It's the discretion of the regulators that's lacking, or at leas they've cultivated a perception that it's lacking.

This is why laws like that sometimes (and should) have a clause that basically says:

"If responsible government agency decrees, the statutes herein may be waived according to X, Y, Z."

> We don't want there to be an incentive to harm marine mammals.

Sure, but maybe animal compost stinks, poisons the water, and attracts pests, and handwaving that away would be even dumber than dynamiting the whale.

We've had 3 beached whales here in Oregon in the last few months and it seems as though letting nature take it's course is how they deal with them now, which makes sense as the decaying whale provides food for all kinds of critters. They put up signs around the area warning people not to touch it or let their dogs get too close.

It's the reality equivalent of that WKRP In Cincinnati bit where they toss turkeys out of a helicopter.

As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly.

Wild ones can. My wife and I were hiking into the dusk one evening a couple years ago and all of a sudden the tree canopy was clamorous with the sounds of large animals lumbering through the branches. And not like the way that a chipmunk sounds huge in the dark either.

We were both starting to get a little concerned (on the path to half-terrified, if I'm being honest) until we saw a turkey loudly alight on a branch as it flew up to roost for the night.

I've definitely also had a whole flock take off out of the field next to the road we used to live on and fly off to the other side as I've driven by. They are remarkably graceful in the air for as large and ungainly as they look on the ground. I'm still not convinced that they're national bird material, though.

Same with chickens, as long as they're not the ones bred for meat that are nearly perfect spheres, they can "fly" a little bit to get into perches; it's more akin to power jumping with style, but wild birds are nowhere near as fat as you might expect.

I. Know.

We have a number of layers that varies based on how recently we've acquired more and how busy the local foxes have been[0]. They aren't graceful, but they'll get places you'd be surprised to find them. And they'll usually poop all over when they get there.

They also don't much care for walking through the snow. They'll noisily and gracelessly fly 50' if there's scratch grain scattered on the driveway.

My sister-in-law raises meat birds, and she's done the Cornish Crosses[1] a couple of times. They'll get big enough that they don't really walk well without dragging their breasts on the ground, never mind flying. I'm kind of hoping she's done with them and that I don't have to help process them again. The Freedom Rangers that made up half of the last flock were a lot more pleasant to deal with. Even so, the smell of chicken shit and wet feathers usually puts me off eating chicken for a week afterwards.

[0] On the bright side, it means we haven't yet had to have a conversation about what to do with a layer who has aged out of laying.

[1] Which she refers to as "mutants".

I liked the Rhode Island reds we had, they weren't amazing flyers (and we weren't raising them as fryers) but they laid aigs as they should and looked properly like a chicken.

I love that you can order chicks in the mail. There are SO MANY TYPES collect them all https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chicks.html

This reminded me of another classic - saving a cat in russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Nr31Lv6H8

lol... that cat is not coming back unless the owner signs a document guaranteeing that young man is coming back every again (not even to the same postal code!)

The Brett Domino Trio is writing a homage musical “Oregon Exploding Whale 1970” to this event, you can listen to an excerpt of YouTube: https://youtu.be/UJHKB4arFNQ

They also performed it on such stages as EOOTCDC: https://youtu.be/m2D-_AAj_4A

Heart-wrenching performances.

https://katu.com/news/local/the-exploding-whale-50th-anniver...

As I rewatch this years later I am left questioning the presumption of failure. Sure it was more dangerous than expected but they sure did get rid of a good portion of whale! . Also - still so funny.

It spread the rotten whale through a much larger area, where it would be basically impossible to clean. The beach has gone from a large stinking problem for the entire beach stinking for an year or two.

Every time i see it, i have a big smile on my face.

Thank you for sharing. This was one of the first funny videos I downloaded from the internet.

One of my favorite videos of all time.

Classic.

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