Bloated whale carcass now caught in tug of war between Newfoundland town and ROM

Had it landed somewhere more remote, Stinky the dead blue whale probably would have been left to rot in peace.

But Stinky had the misfortune to wash up at the town of Trout River, one of those snug little Newfoundland coastal towns you see in travel ads. Since his arrival April 25, the late Stinky has become a headache for the two-century-old community located on the edge of Gros Morne National Park.

One of Stinky's friends, meanwhile, washed up by the nearby village of Rocky Harbour. It's one of nine blue whales thought to have been crushed by thick sea ice last month, CTV News reported.

I call him Stinky, of course, because that's his main thing. He's been rotting quietly away for the last week or so, emitting a foul reek that wrinkles the noses of Trout River's townsfolk, all except kids who're fascinated with the beached blue whale.

Oh yes, and he's been bloating up like some giant grounded parade balloon, threatening to explode, though experts think the built up gases will be expelled less dramatically, maybe in some humungous fart.

Judging from this 1970 vintage YouTube video, you don't want to be anywhere near a whale when it explodes.

[ Related: Rotting whale's stench, bloating worry Trout River ]

Whatever happens, residents don't like the idea of a smelly carcass rotting on the shoreline as the town prepares to welcome its summer tourists.

"Normally we advertise whales to get people to come, where the restaurant is right on the beach and we often have whales in the cove frolicking about, but we don't want a dead whale as an attraction," Jenny Parsons, whose Seaside Restaurant is close by, told CBC News earlier this week.

The town called in vain for help from the Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment Canada, all of whom initially begged off, the National Post reported.

But on Thursday, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea announced a deal with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), to recover both whales for scientific research and to preserve the skeletons for future display.

The ROM's deputy director of collections and research told CTV News a 10-member team will head to Newfoundland next week strip the carcasses before dismantling the skeletons and shipping the bones to Toronto. The rotting flesh will end up in a landfill.

"It's a lot of very smelly work," said Mark Engstrom. "There's nothing that smells worse than a dead whale. They don't smell good to begin with and these have been dead awhile."

North Atlantic blue whales, an endangered species, are the largest creatures ever to have lived on Earth, including the biggest dinosaurs. They can be as much as 30 metres long and weigh up to 180 tonnes, CTV News noted.

Beached blue whales are a relative rarity, so they're prized by researchers. The skeleton of 26-metre-long blue whale that washed up on the coast of Prince Edward Island in 1987, is now on display at the University of British Columbia's Beaty Biodiversity Museum's glass atrium.

The carcass was left buried in Prince Edward Island for 20 years, then exhumed, the bones cleaned and eventually set up in the Vancouver museum in 2010.

But now Trout River leaders are miffed that the feds and the ROM have not consulted them.

“My frustration, you could say, is palpable. It is unreal,” Mayor Paul Matthews told the Post.

[ Related: Scientists dissect beached whale ]

Matthews wants to keep the whale skeleton as a tourist attraction rather than have it shipped off to Toronto.

“It was made quite clear to us in the beginning that we were going to be on our own on this," he said. "But then as it became clear that the whale might have cachet over and above being an environmental concern for the community — and the international media got involved in the story — things changed very quickly."

So from the town's initial demand to the feds to do something, it's now implying the help being offered amounts to cultural theft.

“From our perspective, we are people tied to the sea. We make our living from the sea," said Matthews.

"And yet, when one of these rare creatures visits us, even in this circumstance, it is being taken away. I would have hoped we would have at least had some input into this.”

It's only fair that the ROM gets dibs on Stinky and his pal. It's footing the bill to remove them, which could run into six figures.

But does there really need to be a tug of war? There are two dead whales, after all. Surely one could be exhibited at the ROM and the other returned to Trout River or Rocky Harbour to serve as a tourist attraction.