On November 12th, 1970, the Oregon Highway Division blew up a decaying sperm whale carcass with dynamite on the beach in Florence, Oregon. The whale had been beached three days earlier on November 9th, and had an estimated weight of 8 tons, or 16,000 lbs. At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the Highway Division, who decided to remove the whale with dynamite after consulting the U.S. Navy. Eventually, the amount of 450kg of dynamite was selected for use, even after a military veteran warned that amount was too much. At 3:45 p.m., the dynamite was detonated. The explosion was filmed by cameraman Doug Brazil for a story by news reporter Paul Linnman of KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon. The chunks of whale blubber flew so far, that some crushed cars in parking lots nearby. When 41 sperm whales beached nearby in 1979, park officials burned and buried them instead.
