It sounds like the start of a joke, but City of Stirling found out the answer to this question the hard way when a whale washed up on Scarborough Beach.
The Perth council was left with a bill for more than $188,000 for the removal and disposal of the rotting humpback whale last month.
The council worked with contractor KEE Group to remove the carcass from the popular beach.
It took approximately 30 workers using two 15 tonne cranes, one 50 tonne haul pack in addition to multiple other equipment including front-end loaders, Bobcats and excavators to remove the whale. A dump truck was also used to take away 200 cubic metres of contaminated sand.
A much smaller whale washed up on the beach 40 years ago and it was sent to landfill, but the council had not dealt with such a large carcass in recent times.
The carcass first made headlines when a
Perth man was photographed climbing on top of the floating carcass as large sharks circled him.
It has since sparked debate in Perth as to whether whale carcasses should be dragged out to sea before they reach shore.
Mayor Giovanni Italiano told
PWPro his advice for other councils in a similar situation.
“Stand your ground and demand State Government departments act and tow the whale out to sea instead of deliberately allowing it to wash ashore due to bureaucratic buck passing due to confusion over who had the jurisdiction of a dead whale in the sea.”
ABC News reported that Mayor Italiano has written to the Western Australian Premier asking him to cover the costs of removing the whale carcass.
A breakdown of the costs can be found here.