From BBC News:

After 15 months of pregnancy, Qila the Vancouver Aquarium’s 12-year-old beluga whale has given birth to her first calf.

The birth was captured live by television cameras.

Qila was the first beluga whale to be conceived and born in a Canadian aquarium.

She has remained in the aquarium with her mother Aurora, who is 21 years old.

BBC news also has a great video of the birth.

Next, Jon Murray of The Province has a nice gallery of photos:

Finally, the Vancouver Aquarium has posted an official announcement of the birth as well as their own video on YouTube:

And if you just can’t get enough of this baby beluga, tune into the Vancouver Aquarium’s “belugacam” — not to be missed!

• “I Refuse To Let Some Beached Whale Ruin Our Family Outing”

The story is relayed as Patricia’s side of a conversation between her and her family following their arrival at a popular beach destination. Husband, Eric, and kids, Joshua and Kylie, are less than thrilled when they realize that the otherwise gorgeous, pristine beach has been fouled by a huge, reeking dead (or possibly still dying?) whale. Patricia is determined to see that their guidebook getaway will carry on as planned. In fact, the whale is almost an afterthought in her nonstop ramblings about sunscreen, badminton, and “when I was your age” adages:

Kids, I’m already worried about this sun. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and they say the sun is at its most damaging in the late morning. We should move into the shade. Here, let’s sit in front of the whale’s belly. It casts a nice big shadow.

Later on, the carcass appears to be moving, and they think it might still be alive:

Oh, look! The whale is still alive after all! Its side is heaving! My goodness, it is huge…. And look how it’s weakly flapping its free fin. Don’t worry, kids, it can’t hurt you. It won’t be alive much longer, anyhow. Oh, now I’ve done it, haven’t I? Remember the dead starfish you found on the beach last year? Well, this is no different.

Kylie, stop crying.

After changing the topic to food, downplaying the malodor to her kids, and then threatening to give away the family pet, Patricia continues:

Okay, okay, everybody just calm down. Joshua! Get back here! It was only the whale’s tummy exploding a little. As the whale perishes, its body fills with gas, and then it needs somewhere to escape. It’s just like when you drink a little too much soda. That’s why we only brought juice on this trip. Look, this sort of thing happens during decomposition. Remember — death is just the final stage of life. Sober heads, now.

Come on, Kylie, Joshua, Eric, let’s all go for a swim. Let’s wash all this black, inky sludge off our bodies. Bring your boogie boards!

The work apparently dates back to June, 2004, but it was recently featured in a Philadelphia stage production called RAW ONION: America Speaks Out! in which actors portrayed several characters from the Opinion page of The Onion. The show was a fundraiser for The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, a Philadelphia-based theater company.

Obviously, I’d like to encourage you to vote for the Exploding Whale! So go do it. Now. What are you waiting for? I’ll still be here when you come back. Go on now. Vote for the Whale!

Last week’s story of how the U.S. military shot down a satellite carrying toxic rocket fuel brought at least a couple comparisons to Oregon’s Exploding Whale. The military had lost control of the crippled satellite in late 2006 shortly after it was launched. The bus-sized hulk was finally threatening to fall out of orbit, and people’s lives were at stake should the fuel tank, or any amount of the one thousand pounds of unused hydrazine rocket fuel it contains, return to Earth. In order to minimize the amount of material that might be left in space, the government waited until just before the satellite was ready to fall out of orbit before conducting its operation. The goal was to blast the satellite into as many small pieces as possible, and to have those smaller pieces burn up as they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? At least they weren’t expecting sea birds to eat up all the small pieces!

Anyway, Bob Welch made a passing comment about it on his blog. And then there was a nice little piece by Marlene Lang in Chicago’s Southtown Star. Here’s an excerpt of a few key passages:

[Most] of the satellite debris burned up as it re-entered the earth’s atmosphere…. Other debris will reportedly re-enter the atmosphere during the next 40 days…. It’s not likely to rain down on us like splatters of whale flesh. In fact, it’s unlikely to hit anyone at all…. [The] planet is covered with a lot of water, and people don’t live on the oceans’ surface. I just hope the debris doesn’t hit any whales.

You can read both articles at the following links:

• Close to Home’s Best of the Week: Feb. 17-23, 2008 - Bob Welch’s “Close to Home” blog
• Rocket fuel story a whale of a tale - Southtown Star

So, for the record, here is my winning limerick:

Florence is home to a tale surreal
In which a dead whale stunk a great deal
Boom! went the dynamite
One chunk took quite a flight
And crushed Walter’s new Oldsmobile.

Of course, “Walter” is Walter Umenhofer, whose brand new Oldsmobile 88 was crushed by a huge piece of flying whale meat following the explosion. Walter is mentioned in several of the newspaper articles covering the incident (e.g., 1, 2, 3, and 4) and was profiled by Bob Welch in a recent column.

You can read Bob’s original columns regarding the contest here:

• There once was a state known as … - Register-Guard
• Limerick loot goes to whale of Oregon tale - Register-Guard

And here’s a link to our permanent archive of the column announcing the contest results:

• “Limerick loot goes to whale” (2/21/08) - TheExplodingWhale.com

Update 2/22/08: Bob posted an entry on his blog with the winning limerick and a brief mention of TheExplodingWhale.com, stating:

Hackstadt, of course, has more than a passing interest in the infamous exploding whale story and in Walter Umenhofer, the Eugene man whose car was crushed by the blubber. Hackstadt is the self-appointed curator of everything “exploding whale.” If you doubt me, see his Website at www.theexplodingwhale.com.

Here’s a link to the the entry on Bob’s blog:

• Close to Home’s Best of the Week: Feb. 17-23, 2008 - Bob Welch’s “Close to Home” blog

Well, I for one felt obligated to submit something related to the Exploding Whale. And apparently, I was not alone. In addition to my three entries, four other readers were moved to poetry by our beloved cetacean detonation. Please, feel free to read through all 286 submissions. Or, at the end of this entry, you can read just the limericks that referenced the Exploding Whale.

From the 286 submissions, Bob will pick the top three and award them gift certificates to a local book store. In addition, the best limericks will be published in his February 21st column. (Update: See this posting for the surprising results!)

From “All 286 Oregon Limerick entries,” as posted on Bob Welch’s blog:

A whale made an unscheduled stop
In it’s tracks on the beach it did drop
So they blew it sky high
And the man yelled, Oh My!
On his car it did land right on top
— Ross Daniels, Eugene

As something of a seaside lover
The Oregon Coast you should discover
But whilst climbing a dune
If you hear a ka-boom
Watchout for flying blubber!
— Randy Haines, Eugene

An error of unprecedented scale
That resulted in blubber hail
Made Florence, our coast town
A place of freakish reknown
With the tale of the exploding whale
— Gene Wong

Washed up on a beach in Florence,
It’s stench made it an abhorrence
Until the Highway Division
Made an explosive decision
And dead whale rained down in torrents
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

Florence is home to a tale surreal
In which a dead whale stunk a great deal
Boom! went the dynamite
One chunk took quite a flight
And crushed Walter’s new Oldsmobile.
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

In Florence a very strange thing occurred
A smelly dead whale was blown up—absurd!
The solution, so silly
(No, it wasn’t Free Willy)
Sent whale blubber flying skyward
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

The most infamous beach in all the north west
was christened with blubber at ODOT’s request
The smell was so rank
That everyone stank
who had gone down to watch the whale blow fest.
— Linda Vaccaro, Florence

While the video contains a brief, unattributed screen shot of our Dave Barry page, TheExplodingWhale.com is, unfortunately, not directly featured. (And why not?) But the animation by Abdul Hameed Gamiet and the comic strip by Greg Williams — both covered on TheExplodingWhale.com in recent months — were featured prominently in the story.

“It’s funny,” [Umenhofer] says. “That was one big piece of blubber. It hit so hard that it bent my roof down and pushed the back of the seats to the floor.”

Unfortunately, Bob’s interview, which is part of his “Where Are They Now?” series, is pretty brief. Walter does share one humorous tidbit: when he purchased his brand new Olds, the car dealer was using the motto, “Come to us for a whale of a deal.”

Here’s a link to the original article:

• It’s Still Whale of a Tale to Tell for ‘Blubber Victim’ - Register-Guard

And here’s a link to the permanent copy stored in our archive:

• “It’s Still Whale of a Tale…” (1/14/08) - TheExplodingWhale.com

Finally, for additional background, here are links to some of the original Register-Guard newspaper reports from 1970 that involve Mr. Umenhofer:

• When they blow up a whale, they really blow it up! (11/13/70) - TheExplodingWhale.com
• Who pays when you’re hit by whale? (11/17/70) - TheExplodingWhale.com
• Flying blubber claim paid (11/23/70) - TheExplodingWhale.com

While the new visuals are occasionally humorous (if not reminiscent of The Simpsons!), Gamiet’s decision to use the original newsreel’s audio track was a wise one. You just can’t beat Linnman’s deadpan delivery. The combination is an entertaining remake of an unrivaled classic.

You can watch the animation on YouTube or in the video player below: