dumpster whale

@Schreibernews/Twitter

Behold Dumpster Whale, the dead whale that didn’t fit into a dumpster

A dark, concerning story that is very 2018.

 

Brittany Vincent

Internet Culture

Posted on Sep 20, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 6:03 am CDT

What do you do with a dead whale? You treat it with much more respect than leaving it out in a parking lot in Rye, New Hampshire, hopefully.

After a minke whale washed ashore off the coast between Rye and the Isle of Shoals earlier this week, the 2-ton mammal simply lay on the beach where it had first made landfall. It remained there until it was taken away to a dumpster, where the idea was to contain the once-magnificent animal until it could be transported to a special facility for a necropsy. Researchers at the New England Aquarium would then assist in figuring out just how the whale passed away in the first place.

Unfortunately, its trip to containment was more like a humiliating spectacle: A loader tried fitting the whale into the dumpster, failed, and instead flopped the dead whale onto the pavement. It was not a pretty sight.

Then, as the whale awaited a new, larger dumpster, it sat out in the parking lot overnight. Once it was placed in the new container, it was then transported to a new location where marine biologists will study its remains. Afterward, the whale’s corpse will be composted.

As morbid as the situation is and as unfortunate as the poor animal has been treated, people are still finding humor in the situation.

Maybe we shouldn’t be laughing, but we totally are.

https://twitter.com/DivingDancer/status/1042233624857387008

https://twitter.com/moltke_helmuth/status/1042842671654608896

Others are understandably appalled.

https://twitter.com/dexcat63/status/1042545423393542145

A dead whale was treated like an enormous piece of garbage, which is abhorrent. The only thing left to do is try and make peace with it.

https://twitter.com/416eric/status/1042195526932869120

Honestly, there’s no better analogy for 2018.

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*First Published: Sep 20, 2018, 3:32 pm CDT