The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is set to remove one or both of the carcasses of blue whales that washed up in western Newfoundland, Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials announced Thursday. 
 
 ROM scientists will travel to Rocky Harbour and Trout River on the northwest coast of Newfoundland soon to preserve the whales’ skeletons and collect tissue samples from the massive marine mammals. 
 
 While the whales' ice-locked death was unfortunate — an estimated five per cent of the endangered species population was lost in the event, according to the ROM — it also marks an opportunity for the scientific community. 
 
 Scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum in downtown Toronto are set to remove one or both of the blue whale carcasses so the mammals' skeletons can be preserved. (Michelle Siu/Canadian Press) 
 
 ​"This is an important opportunity to further our understanding of these magnificent animals and provide an invaluable resource for Canadian science and education now and in the future," said Mark D. Engstrom, the ROM’s deputy director of collections and research. 
 
 Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said the government is happy to partner with the ROM to preserve the skeletons. Shea said Canadians will benefit from the chance to study the whales up close. 
 
 It’s not immediately clear how long it will take the ROM scientists to get the decomposing whales off the beaches where they washed up. Some blue whales are as long as two school buses, 
 
 Residents of Rocky Harbour and Trout River, however, still have concerns the whales may explode due to the gases trapped inside their carcasses. 
 
 'I think now people are beginning to realize that how often does a blue whale wash up on your beach? It's pretty awesome to have it there.' - Jenny Parsons, owner of Seaside Restaurant in Trout River 
 
 The dead blue whale in Trout River has been expanding since it washed ashore several weeks ago. 
 
 Many have also expressed concern with the smell from the rotting whales. But Jenny Parsons, who operates the Seaside Restaurant in Trout River, said some people in town will be sad to see the whale go. 
 
 This blue whale carcass was found near Bonne Bay last month. Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials have said they could determine whether the whale was part of the same group of dead whales spotted near Bay St. George earlier this year by taking DNA samples. (Photo courtesy DFO) 
 
 "I think now people are beginning to realize that how often does a blue whale wash up on your beach? It's pretty awesome to have it there," said Parsons. 
 
 Parsons said she would like to see a blue whale pavilion in western Newfoundland, something she thinks would attract tourists from far and wide. Journalists have been calling all day from around the world, she told CBC Radio's As It Happens, many curious about the possibility of a whale explosion. 
 
 Ideally, Parsons said, DFO would move the whale out of the community while it decomposes but then return it. That makes more sense than sending it to Toronto, she said. 
 
 "It's not going to be no small feat to move this to Ontario," Parsons said. 
 
 Concern growing about Rocky Harbour carcass 
 
 The other blue whale carcass has been grounded in Rocky Harbour, located in Gros Morne National Park. 
 
 People have been visiting Trout River to catch a sight of the blue whale carcass that washed ashore last month. (CBC) 
 
 Mayor Walter Nicolle said that for the first week or so, the whale was a real tourist attraction. 
 
 "But right now the whale is starting to smell a bit, so the local people are getting concerned about it," he told CBC News. 
 
 At first, Nicolle was told the 20-metre whale was the town's problem. So town officials proceeded to secure a permit to remove the carcass, though Nicolle admitted they are not sure just how to do that. 
 
 "I'm a little bit surprised they're going to take it away already." 
 
 The loss of nine blue whales has attracted international and national scientific interest. Sample tissue of one whale has been taken to gather scientific data. 
 
 In 2010, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa unveiled a blue whale skeleton. 
 
 The museum acquired the remains of the female whale in 1975 after it beached itself in Newfoundland. ||||| Residents of the Canadian town of Trout River in Newfoundland are concerned about the disposal of a dead blue whale that washed up on its beach last week. 
 
 There had been fears that the carcass - which is bloated with methane gas - could explode. 
 
 Town Clerk Emily Butler told BBC News that the whale had deflated slightly but it would still be difficult to deal with. ||||| 
 
 The Canadian Press 
 
 
 
 
 
 ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- The deaths of endangered blue whales off Newfoundland are a tragic loss but also a rare chance to study the world's largest animal, says the head of the Royal Ontario Museum team that will handle their two carcasses. 
 
 "We wish it hadn't happened," Mark Engstrom, deputy director of collections and research for the museum, said Thursday from Toronto. "But this is an incredible opportunity to see one and to work with one." 
 
 Engstrom is not, incidentally, worried that the massive corpses that washed ashore on Newfoundland's west coast will explode. 
 
 "I think the concerns about that have been overblown -- no pun intended," he said. "It will simply deflate." 
 
 Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea announced Thursday that the museum researchers will preserve the two skeletons and collect tissue samples. 
 
 It's believed nine of the giant whales, which can reach lengths of 30 metres and weigh up to 180 tonnes, were crushed in thick sea ice last month. Two of the massive bodies beached in the small west coast communities of Trout River and Rocky Harbour near Gros Morne National Park. 
 
 Town officials appealed for help with the huge and costly job of removing the carcasses. They raised concerns that the rotting whales pose health hazards and could drive away tourists if left to decompose. 
 
 Engstrom said a team of at least 10 assembled by the museum will head to Newfoundland next week. He said they'll use flensing knives to cut through the skin, blubber and skeletal muscles of the two carcasses before dismantling the skeletons. 
 
 Flesh and blubber will be disposed of in local dumps, Engstrom said. The bones will be packed into large containers and driven back to Ontario using at least 18-wheel trucks, he added. 
 
 The operation is being funded by the museum and will cost tens of thousands of dollars, Engstrom said. He figures it will take at least two weeks once work begins. 
 
 Engstrom in the past has helped salvage the remains of a right whale, a fin whale, a sperm whale, a humpback and a killer whale. 
 
 "It's a lot of very smelly work. There's nothing that smells worse than a dead whale. They don't smell good to begin with and these have been dead awhile." 
 
 Engstrom said tissue samples will be preserved for DNA study and the skeletons will be available to scientists from around the world. 
 
 One of the skeletons could ultimately be displayed at the museum if funds are available, he added. 
 
 Northwestern Atlantic blue whales are listed as endangered with a population estimated at just 250 before the nine known deaths. 
 
 Walter Nicolle, mayor of Rocky Harbour, is relieved to see someone step up. The federal Fisheries Department had said earlier in the week that the carcasses are above the high water mark and therefore provincial responsibility. 
 
 "We're only a small town," Nicolle said in an interview. "We don't have a budget large enough to take care of that whale." 
 
 Nicolle said a steady stream of visitors has arrived for photos with the carcass as concerns about potential eruptions due to internal methane gas buildup made international headlines. 
 
 "If it were to stay there for much longer it would stink up the whole community, I would say." ||||| 
 
 CTVNews.ca Staff 
 
 
 
 
 
 Residents of two small towns in Newfoundland are worried the giant blue whales that have washed ashore could soon explode, and it appears they’ve been left to dispose of the rotting carcasses themselves. 
 
 Three of the mammoth marine mammals beached on the west end of the island, close to Rocky Harbour and Trout River, this past weekend. 
 
 In Trout River, a tourist community, a nearly 26-metre-long whale carcass continues to draw interest from curious residents, but the town's manager fears the fascination will soon turn to disgust. 
 
 "With the warm temperatures coming on we're really concerned about the smell from this," Emily Butler told NTV on Monday. "We are also concerned with the health aspect of this animal being on the beach line." 
 
 As the whale decomposes, its corpse fills with methane gas. Town officials fear that it will continue to swell until it eventually explodes. 
 
 The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said it will likely be up to the local and provincial governments to find a way to dispose of the rotting blue whale carcasses, but Butler said the small town does not have the money or the resources to do so. 
 
 "The response we're getting is basically that, this is on the beach and we could naturally let it decompose here," Butler said. 
 
 She added that, if the whale pushed back into the ocean, the DFO would consider its potential interference with marine navigation. 
 
 The endangered blue whales were among nine that were found dead off Newfoundland's coast earlier this month. The DFO had expected weather patterns and water currents to float the carcasses out to sea. 
 
 It's believed the whales drowned or were crushed by heavy ice while feeding. 
 
 With a report from NTV's Don Bradshaw
– Residents of a Newfoundland town can breathe a sigh of relief: It looks like the carcass of a blue whale that washed up on the shores of Trout River might not explode after all. Officials feared it would, as gases swelled the creature's 81-foot-long body, but the whale has since deflated a bit, the town clerk tells the BBC. Now the town just needs to get rid of the 60-ton carcass—there had been, as one official noted earlier this week, some concern "about the smell from this" as warmer temperatures arrived. Fortunately, CTV reports, the Royal Ontario Museum has agreed to help, and will send a 10-person team next week to cut away the skin, blubber, and muscles, which will be dumped, and then take apart the skeleton, which will be transported to Ontario on an 18-wheeler. What does the museum get out of the two-week operation, which will cost tens of thousands of dollars? Quite a bit, says one official: The endangered blue whale is the world's largest animal, and though no one is cheering the death, "this is an incredible opportunity to see one and to work with one," he says, though "it's a lot of very smelly work." The museum will also handle another blue whale carcass that washed up elsewhere in Newfoundland; both whales, along with seven others, are believed to have been crushed in thick sea ice last month. (That's 5% of the estimated population in the Northwest Atlantic, CBC notes.) Tissue samples and skeletons will be studied, and one of the skeletons may eventually be displayed—though scientists won't get all the parts; the Western Star reported earlier this week that someone illegally sawed off one of the whale's flippers. (Some whale carcasses have been known to explode—in one recent case, all over a biologist.)