Cape Town residents were treated to a peculiar sight on Sunday morning: a humpback whale on a posthumous road trip from Hout Bay through Constantia.
The whale had washed up on a Hout Bay’s beach, and officials quickly removed it for disposal to avoid attracting sharks or creating a smelly situation for beachgoers.
Locals took to social media to share the strange but memorable scene, with Facebook user Kate Gerber-Furmie explaining, “The reason they (the City) remove dead whales from the beach is because when they decompose, their bellies distend with gas and then explode, sending whale pieces for miles.”
While it may sound like something out of a nature documentary (or a science fiction movie), exploding whale carcasses are a real thing, and keeping them on the beach can quickly become a problem.
As it turns out, whale strandings are not infrequent in South Africa, especially along the Western Cape. Whales may wash ashore for a variety of reasons, from navigating mishaps to old age or even trying to escape predation from orcas. Beached whales were also reported this month in Cape St Martin with two whales spotted in Simons Town.
Reddit user u/thorGOT jokingly commented that “due to climate change, they can no longer swim around the eastern side of the mountain, and so rely on flatbed trucks for overland transport.”
User u/Mightbealpharius, echoing Gerber-Furmie, commented that “they are typically moved to designated landfills or processed for research or other educational purposes.”
Since Cape Town’s beaches are a popular spot for both whales and people, the city has protocols in place to handle these rare visitors efficiently. This time, the whale had the city abuzz, turning a regular Sunday into one for the books with a story that’s sure to be told for awhile.
IOL