Whale disposal

The DOC team left yesterday at around 4.30pm, the plan to come again today at 9.30am at low tide so the team could perform the tests and take the samples they needed to determine the cause of death. The head, flippers and stomach were to be sent to TePapa in Wellington for analysis.
Caitlin and I arrived at 9am to find that overnight the Whale had been butchered for some prime strips of meat, and its tail.

About half an hour later some of the DOC team arrived along with a digger to move the carcass to a burial site 30 metres back in the established dunes which the digger driver expertly created.

After a long wait a sling was placed around the whale to move next to the hole for the removal of the 'samples'.

The first attempt led to the whale slipping out, but a second try kept the weight better balanced, and the whale was carted up to the dunes.

after almost 4 hours of me and Caity standing in the rain, (the weather was horrendously cold and raining hard) although the pics dont show that, we reluctantly left before the stomach was opened.
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