Watch Charlize Theron Get Hit In The Face By An Exploding Whale On ‘Saturday Night Live’: “Saturday Night Live – Bikini Beach Party”  – NBC/Hulu

On November 26, 2013, the carcass of a dead sperm whale violently exploded in the Faroe Islands when a marine biologist began cutting it open. Four sperm whales became stranded between the islands of Streymoy and Eysturoy. Two of the whales eventually died. A few days later, one of the dead whales was towed to a nearby abandoned whaling station ( Við Áir ) so the bones could be harvested for a future museum display. However, as they started to cut into the carcass, a violent explosion erupted from the whale’s abdomen spraying blood and entrails for many yards and nearly injuring  Bjarni Mikkelsen , the biologist who was doing the cutting. The story has been memorialized on our website here:  Faroe Islands (11/26/2013)

George Thornton, the highway engineer who supervised the detonation of 20 cases of dynamite in an attempt to dispose of a dead sperm whale on the Oregon Coast, died on Sunday, October 27, 2013, in Medford, Oregon. He was 84 years old. Thornton worked for the Oregon Highway Division (later renamed the Oregon Department of Transportation) from 1947 to 1984. He retired several years before the Exploding Whale story became an internet sensation thanks to an  article written by Dave Barry .  Many years later,  Paul Linnman , the KATU TV news reporter who covered the Exploding Whale story, reached out to Thornton while writing his book on the subject ( The Exploding Whale and Other Remarkable Stories from the Evening News ). Thornton declined to be interviewed, saying only, “No, it seems like whenever I talk to the media, it blows up in my face.” We’ve archived several related articles: Man behind the exploding whale debacle dies at 84   – KATU Exploding-whale engineer Geo...

Welcome to the second installment of  Whales in the News : 50 Years of KATU TV: A whale of a story that became a legend KATU, the Portland, Oregon, TV station that originally broadcasted Paul Linnman’s famous news report on the original Exploding Whale, celebrated their 50th anniversary on March 15, 2012. In honor of the event, they showed Linnman’s original report and interviewed him afterwards. Rare Whale Swims Up West Coast to Russian Home Varvara, a rare western Pacific gray whale, is the first to be documented all the way to Baja Mexico, where most California gray whales breed and give birth. Now she appears to be on the move again, expected to head to feeding grounds off Russia’s Sakhalin Island. ‘Whale Wars’ spin-off coming in April The Sea Shepherds head to the Faroe Islands to take on the slaughter of pilot whales, and Animal Planet cameras are there to capture the action. “Whale Wars: Viking Shores” premieres on Animal Planet on April 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Whale barely make...

Welcome to the first edition of  Whales in the News  here on TheExplodingWhale.com! In this series of posts, we’ll be aggregating recent whale-related news and articles for your entertainment and education. And so without further ado, here are some of the top whale stories from the past week: Giant squid eyes are sperm whale defence An interesting article about how and why giant squid eyes may have evolved to be three times as large as any other known creature. I know this may come as a shock, but it turns out that being able to detect your one and only predator — and for giant squid that would be giant sperm whales — from far away increases your chances of survival. As the authors state, there appears to be a “powerful evolutionary pressure towards developing effective eyes.” It all seems rather obvious, but the article is a good read nonetheless. Japan Whale Catch Falls Short Sea Shepherd anti-whaling activists have once again significantly disrupted Japanese whaling in the ...