{"id":345681,"date":"2025-10-31T13:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/345681\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T13:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:49:13","slug":"waroona-shire-suggests-blowing-up-rotting-whale-carcass-to-save-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/345681\/","title":{"rendered":"Waroona Shire suggests blowing up rotting whale carcass to save money"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Shire of Waroona in Western Australia has suggested to the state government that a rotting whale carcass be towed out to sea and blown up, as a means of disposal.<\/p>\n

The decaying whale washed up a week ago on Preston Beach, 123 kilometres south of Perth, and has attracted sharks to the area.<\/p>\n

Waroona Shire President Mike Walmsley told ABC Radio the plan was one of the alternative ideas suggested due to the high cost of disposing of a whale carcass.<\/p>\n

“We’ve put that to them, their eyebrows raised at that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That would be good training for the navy or whoever. That would be an instant way of disposing of a whale.”<\/p>\n

The suggestion came after the shire decided to leave the whale carcass on the beach because of the high cost of removing a dead whale<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

“Our last removal was $20,000, so given the cost of things going up all the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $25,000,” Mr Walmsley said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Shire of Waroona paid $20,000 to remove a dead whale from Preston Beach in 2023. (Supplied: Shire of Waroona)<\/p>\n

Who is responsible?<\/p>\n

Mr Walmsley said without state government support, the shire had no choice but to leave the disposal to nature.<\/p>\n

“At this stage, we thought we would keep our money in our pocket and let it do its natural thing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Can whale carcasses get towed out to sea?<\/a><\/p>\n

Researchers and wildlife authorities say disposal of mammoth bodies is a complicated process after a humpback was carefully loaded onto a truck and buried at the Geraldton tip.<\/p>\n

Mr Walmsley said the state government should adopt a statewide policy of sharing the costs of whale disposal with local governments.<\/p>\n

“For us to do what we need to do, it’s a bit beyond a joke and it’s costly,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions said in a statement that the disposal was the responsibility of the land manager, which in this case was the shire.<\/p>\n

“The state government has a clearly defined position on the responsibilities for whale carcass management, whereby the land manager is responsible for the carcass,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

However, the City of Stirling successfully lobbied the state government to pay half the cost of a $175,000 bill to remove a whale carcass from Scarborough Beach in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Humpback<\/p>\n

The removal of a humpback whale carcass from Scarborough Beach in 2014 cost $175,000. (ABC Perth: Lorraine Horsley)<\/p>\n

Sharks circle the remains<\/p>\n

The shire’s handling of the dead whale has sparked safety concerns, with the carcass attracting sharks to the public beach.<\/p>\n

In the past week, one great white and two tiger sharks, all measuring more than 3 metres, have been sighted in the area.<\/p>\n

Preston Beach resident and former state MP for Collie-Preston, Mick Murray, said the shire “has put dollars in front of safety”.<\/p>\n

Mr Murray said there was not enough signage warning would-be swimmers not to get in the water.<\/p>\n

“They could be quite oblivious to what’s in the water,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They could jump in the oil slick, then we\u2019ll see some problems.”<\/p>\n

Mr Murray said the state government should sit down with coastal shires to create an action plan for whale disposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shire of Waroona in Western Australia has suggested to the state government that a rotting whale carcass…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":345682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[131424,169952,2650,159,169956,5528,67,132,68,169954,8632,169957,31918,169953,169955,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-345681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-dbca","9":"tag-dead-whale","10":"tag-local-government","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-shire-suggests-blowing-up-dead-whale","13":"tag-state-government","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-wa-beach","18":"tag-wa-news","19":"tag-waroona-shire","20":"tag-whale","21":"tag-whale-disposal","22":"tag-who-is-responsible-for-removing-dead-whales","23":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115469101644222443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}