Remember when: The story of Oregon’s exploding whale mishap caught on video in 1970

On a sunny day in November 1970, spectators with cameras lined the dunes south of Florence, Oregon, to watch the state blow up a dead whale. When the dynamite went off, they ran for cover as chunks of whale came down around them.

One roughly 3-foot piece sailed over the crowd and crushed the roof of Walter Umenhofer’s 1969 Oldsmobile, parked about a quarter mile from the blast. No one was injured.

Highway workers had packed 1,000 pounds of dynamite under the rotting sperm whale on Nov. 12, 1970, expecting seagulls to clean up the small pieces. Instead, only part of the whale was pulverized, as footage from Portland TV station KATU shows, and crews had to bury the rest.

The episode, now known as Oregon’s exploding whale, became what the Oregon Encyclopedia calls a cautionary tale. Newspaper and TV accounts from 1970 show why the plan failed. Current federal and state guidance shows how a dead whale on the beach is handled today, including what to do if you find one.

Why did Oregon blow up a dead whale?

State highway officials, then in charge of Oregon’s beaches, decided dynamite was their only workable option.

The whale had washed ashore Nov. 9. The Oregon Encyclopedia describes it as a 45-foot, 8-ton sperm whale.

The Oregon State Highway Division is now the Oregon Department of Transportation. Officials were worried about more than the stench. According to the encyclopedia, they feared the carcass might burst and that someone curious enough to climb on it could fall inside.

George Thornton, the assistant district highway engineer, told the Register-Guard the day before the blast that the state had looked for a rendering plant to take the whale. “But we didn’t find any takers,” he said. He also said a buried carcass would likely be uncovered again. KATU reporter Paul Linnman said in his original television report that nobody wanted to cut it up and that it couldn’t be burned.

Mr. Thornton, who the encyclopedia says consulted Navy and munitions experts, chose to handle the whale the way highway crews would handle a boulder. Workers placed 20 cases of dynamite, each weighing 50 pounds, under the carcass.

The intended result was a field of small pieces. The explosives were placed to send most of the debris toward the Pacific, and crabs would join the seagulls in cleaning up the rest.

How far did the exploding whale’s blubber fly?

Far enough to crush a car parked about a quarter mile away.

Workers spent an hour and 45 minutes placing the charges. Spectators carrying cameras and binoculars gathered on dunes a quarter mile south of the whale. Mr. Thornton ordered everyone back while the charges were set, and a sheriff’s deputy moved the crowd back again before the detonation.

The distance was not sufficient. Larry Bacon of the Eugene Register-Guard reported that the beach “erupted in a 100-foot high column of sand and whale.” Smaller particles of blubber then fell across people, clothing and vehicles.

Mr. Umenhofer, a Springfield businessman, had watched from farther away than the other spectators. He later told the Register-Guard that his demolitions experience from military service made him think the charge was badly placed and too big. His late-model car, parked in a South Jetty Road lot, had no such protection.

“I called my insurance agent to fill out an accident report form, and he laughed,” Mr. Umenhofer told the newspaper five days after the blast. A state highway official suggested he get the car repaired, but he wanted the state to cover its full retail value instead. “I don’t want that car,” he said. It was sitting under a tarp at a shop, he said, because it smelled so bad.

Within two weeks, the state’s insurer had paid him the car’s full retail value, the Register-Guard reported Nov. 23. He called the undisclosed amount “very satisfactory” but remained critical of how the state handled the whale. “They’re just lucky they didn’t kill somebody,” he said.

Did blowing up the whale work?

Not as planned: the birds that were supposed to clean up stayed away.

Mr. Thornton defended the operation. “It went just exactly right,” he told Mr. Bacon. “Except the blast funneled a hole in the sand under the whale.” In Mr. Thornton’s assessment, that sent some debris toward the parking area instead of the ocean. He said the result showed the state had been right to push the crowd back so far.

There was a limited basis for calling the blast a success. No one was struck by the largest pieces, and the whale was no longer intact. Those standards did not amount to disposal.

KATU’s original report records three things. The seagulls vanished after the explosion. The leftover chunks were too big for them anyway. And as night fell, crews returned to bury what was left, including a large section of the whale that the blast never moved.

Nine years later, Oregon handled a far bigger stranding without explosives. When 41 sperm whales died on a beach south of Florence in 1979, a team led by the Oregon State Parks Department burned the carcasses and buried them on site, the Oregon Daily Emerald reported.

The failure does not mean whale disposal has a simple answer. NOAA Fisheries guidance says the right disposal method varies from case to case. It depends on factors including human safety, location, species, the animal’s size and available resources. Options include leaving the carcass to decompose naturally, burying it above the high-tide line, towing it offshore or sinking it, or removing it for landfill burial, incineration, composting or rendering.

In Oregon, the Oregon State University-based stranding network says most dead marine mammals are simply left to decay where they lie. Anyone worried about a carcass can ask the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which maintains the ocean shore, to send a ranger to bury it. The network asks people to keep their distance, keep dogs leashed and report stranded animals rather than touching or moving them.

Where can you see the exploding whale video?

A remastered 4K version of KATU’s original report, made from the 16 mm film, was released for the 50th anniversary in 2020.

KATU cameraman Doug Brazil recorded the explosion as Mr. Linnman reported from the beach. The original film is held by the Oregon Historical Society.

The footage preserved more than an unusual coastal accident. It documented a public agency applying a familiar solution to an unfamiliar problem. As Mr. Thornton acknowledged on camera before the blast, his crew wasn’t sure how much explosive it would take to break up the carcass.