Carcass
After a beached whale dies, it can become a source of disease and pollution. Due to blubber's high thermal insulation capacity, a whale carcass' internal temperature can remain 30 °C (86 °F) for up to three days, making it an ideal environment for anaerobic microorganisms.
Such very large corpses are difficult to move. On at least one occasion, humans have blown up a whale carcass with explosives, with unsatisfactory side effects.
A beached whale carcass should not be consumed. In 2002, fourteen Alaskans ate muktuk (whale blubber) from a beached whale, and eight of them developed botulism, two requiring mechanical ventilation. This is a possibility for any meat taken from an unpreserved carcass.
Read more about this topic: Beached Whale
Famous quotes containing the word carcass:
“The character of the logger’s admiration is betrayed by his very mode of expressing it.... He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more than the tree.... What right have you to celebrate the virtues of the man you murdered?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)