Whaledate:- 0600 hrs - Monday morning, 27 September, 1999
A mature humpback whale was first seen about 30 metres in the shallows of the waves at Marcoola, about 100 metres away from residences and about 500 metres south of the Marcoola Surf club.

A crowd of people soon gathered and a representative of Underwater World arrived. News and TV people were on the beach at different times and the crowds drove up all day to see the whale.. We kept tabs all day on these events, and when the whale was beached at about midday and its injuries could be seen, we worried about its disposal .

The Council work gang then proceeded to cover the carcass (BUT ONLY JUST - 1 metre at best), PICTURES

WHY NO PROCEDURES IN PLACE TO DEAL WITH THIS TYPE OF EVENT
The so called EXPERTS who we trust to take care of these sorts of problems do not seem to have any kind of PROTOCOL in place to deal with situations such as this.
They knew about this carcass the day before it was beached. - When it was still 4 nautical miles off the coast. But they DID NOTHING about it. - They didn't even TELL anybody about it.
And when it washed ashore and was still floating at 7.00am (When it was HIGH TIDE) they did NOTHING. - If it was to be towed back out to sea, THAT'S when they should have tried to act.
But they stood around until midday when it was low tide before they did anything at all.
NOBODY took any responsibility for it's disposal. -
And Council is blaming the State Government Agencies (Any or All of them) for the decision, saying it was THEIR call and "We only supplied the equipment".
Whereas when asked on the beach at 7.00am, "How they were going to deal with the removal ?"
the Government representative replied that "That was up to Council."

Why is there no SET PROTOCOL for this kind of situation ?