Beach-goers take selfies with dead whale

Tuesday, March 15, 2016, 11:03 AM - When the wonders of the deep wash up on our shores, we don't always treat them with dignity.

Beach-goers in Argentina made world headlines when they happened upon a rare La Plata dolphin, and spent so much time passing it around for pictures that the animal died.

This week, another sea creature, a sperm whale, washed up on a beach in Bali. Asia One reports the two fishermen who found it say it had already died, but the animal still sparked the same localized selfie craze.

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Local fisheries officers told Indonesian media the whale likely became beached after being separated from its pod (that area of Indonesia is on a known whale migration route).

At first, people seemed in awe of the whale. A Hindu priest arrived with an offering for the creature, and one Instagram poster lamented ocean pollution.

"I was relieved that this magnificent and gigantic sperm whale didn't live to suffer too long after he beached himself this morning. Swim in peace, ocean friend," poster jonileighdoran wrote.

But other shots on Instagram are dominated by onlookers treating the carcass as a playground, climbing upon it to take pictures, before authorities arrived with heavy equipment to attempt to remove it.

Your mileage may vary on how respectful that sort of thing is, but there's one aspect the photographers, and others in their position, tend to forget about washed-up whale carcasses: They're biohazards.

When a blue whale washed up on a Newfoundland beach in 2014, Weather Network science writer Scott Sutherland explained that though the animal itself is dead, many of the countless microorganisms that live within it remain active.

"These survivors turn their host into a food source, and as they feast, they emit a collection of noxious gases, including methane (highly flammable and explosive) and hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs smell, toxic if inhaled, and also highly flammable)," Sutherland said. "That's not all, though, because anything the creature has eaten just before it dies will also decay inside the creature's digestive system, and will emit its own collection of these gases."

What that means in practice is a bad case of posthumous bloating, which is why authorities cordon off such large corpses and take steps to alleviate the buildup.

It can be a hazardous process for the people tasked with taking care of it. Note the protective gear worn by the person in the video below, from the Faroe Islands, just before the stomach of that whale bursts violently (WARNING: Graphic content).

SOURCES: CNN | Asia One