Two weeks everyone got news of a fin whale who swam into Courtmacsherry Bay. It was the talk of the town and within days it seemed that everyone had ventured on over to take a look. Those that waited saw more of it's inside than it's outside and we wonder what the kids thought of that. We made only one trek, about 24 hours after it died.
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group chronologed the stranding, biopsy, and removal process.
http://www.iwdg.ie/article.asp?id=2204
Something of a tussle broke out between the two nearest villages, each claiming that they were heirs to the skeleton. Courtmacsherry, situated in full view of the whale (see the second photo), seemed like an appropriate place to build a display...to outsiders like us. Residents of Kilbrittain felt otherwise. They argued that the whale perished on their side of the bay's centerline, and though their town center is a kilometer or so inland, it is there that a display should be built. Indeed it's residents were credited with most of the effort in trying to remove the carcass, with staging and access coming from their side. Undeterred, Courtmacsherry residents made a low-tide midnight attempt at the jawbone, but the sounds of wheeling chainsaws alerted Kilbritain's best who rushed across the mud flat to renew their claim, or so the rumor goes. They retrieved the jaw and hid it until the furor died down.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/villagers-in-row-over-ownership-of-whale-carcass-1607151.html?start=2
And finally, whale removal lessons from Florence, Oregon, 1970.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4&eurl=http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/
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