The stinky whale carcasses in Valsneset in Ørland will not be removed – now the neighbors have had enough – NRK Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio

For two weeks, the carcass of the nine-meter-long baleen whale has been lying on the rocks of the Valsneset quay in the Ørland municipality. The Haukaas and vacation property owners in the area asked the municipality to remove it when it arrived floating.

But the corpse is still there because there is disagreement over who is responsible for removing the stinky whale.

Slowly but surely, the carcass is disintegrating now.

– It’s a pretty deplorable sight, and there’s a terrible smell from the animal, says Haukaas, who is the landowner and is behind a field of huts in the area.

The beaked whale is about thirty feet long and weighed several tons when alive.

There are still many pounds left that will rot and disappear before the whale is completely gone.

For the municipality, it has been crazy to find out if they are responsible or not.

I have asked several advice

The municipality of Ørland affirms that they have investigated several places in relation to the responsibility of this whale and have not received any good response.

– No one has wanted to take responsibility, not the landowners, the Directorate of Fisheries, the Coastal Administration or the Coast Guard. “We have investigated with several, but nobody wants the responsibility,” says the municipal manager of community development and technical services in the municipality of Ørland, Thomas Engen.

According to the municipality, the whale is the owner’s responsibility if it is considered contamination or waste.

– Then it is the landowner himself who must take the invoice for it to be withdrawn. But whether the whale is a waste is another question. That’s probably what’s found here at the intersection, Engen says.

Do a health risk assessment

Meanwhile, the landowners and hut owners have received enough that they sent a joint letter to the municipality and also contacted the municipal doctor to have the whale removed.

– I have outlined several possibilities for the municipality of how this can be solved, says Haukaas, who now in a letter to the municipal doctor demands that the whale leave.

He has also offered to collect the whale himself with a tractor and excavate it, in exchange for the municipality to pay the bill.

– The whale stinks, the blubber and pollution come out of it, and it attracts wild animals like foxes and badgers, Haukaas says.

The municipality has previously visited the whale. Now the municipal doctor will also observe the whale to assess whether it represents a health risk or not.

– We understand this is unpleasant. Now the question is whether there is a public health perspective on this. If the municipal doctor concludes that this is the case, the municipality has a responsibility to eliminate the whale, Engen says.