Body of whale taken to landfill

The body of a whale has been dumped at a landfill site at Bognor Regis in West Sussex despite calls for it to be kept.

The 26ft (8m) Northern Bottlenose was killed by lethal injection after it became trapped on a Hampshire mudflat, suffering from kidney failure.

Hampshire County Council said: "As a public safety priority, the whale had to be moved to minimise contamination.

"We do not have the facilities to store a whale and no-one had come forward asking for it to be preserved."

'Undignified end'

Rita Delahunty, landlady of The Ship Inn at Langstone, near where the whale first beached, said: "It seems a shame after all it has been through.

"It does seem a bit of an undignified end to put it in a hole."

Paul Fisher, chairman of Hayling Island residents' association, said: "It is not very thoughtful. I think it ought to have been preserved."

An operation to try to save the whale - believed to be a young adult - began on 31 July, but it had to be put down the next day.

About a dozen firefighters, police, coastguards, the Ryde Inshore Rescue Independent Lifeboat and Hayling Island harbour staff took part in the rescue attempt.

It was the same species of whale as one that died despite a massive rescue attempt to save it when it swam up the River Thames in January, 2006.

That creature's body was preserved by the Natural History Museum.

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