一条死鲸鱼，让悉尼四个海滩都关了

Recently in Australia there's been a strange piece of news.

A dead whale has shut down four beaches in Sydney.

Here's what happened.

Last Saturday, someone found a very large whale on the shore.

This whale was already dead.

It was eight meters long, twenty-five tons heavy.

Just think about it: how much is twenty-five tons?

About as heavy as thirty cars.

Very, very heavy.

This kind of whale is called a "sperm whale."

It's that very, very large kind of whale.

Sperm whales live in deep waters.

How it died, no one knows.

But after it died at sea, the seawater pushed it onto the shore.

This shore is called Era Beach.

Era Beach is just south of Sydney — about an hour's drive.

There's a big park there called "Royal National Park."

Normally the scenery is great, and lots of people love to visit.

But right now, four beaches in the park are closed.

You can't go in the water, and you can't surf.

The four beaches are: Era, Garie, Wattamolla, and Burning Palms.

Why are they closed?

There are two reasons.

The first reason is sharks.

A dead whale has a lot of meat.

The smell of meat travels far in water.

Sharks have an extremely keen sense of smell.

So as soon as they smell it, they all come over.

What kind of sharks have come?

Great white sharks, and bull sharks.

The kind everyone considers most dangerous.

And it's not one or two — it's many.

Park staff say: there are now lots of big sharks in the water.

For people to go in is too dangerous.

So they're telling everyone: absolutely do not go in the water.

Don't swim, don't surf, don't even put a foot in the water.

The second reason is the whale itself.

A dead whale stinks.

And a whale this big stinks really, really badly.

That smell can be detected hundreds of meters away.

But the real trouble isn't the smell.

The real trouble is: there will be gas in the whale's belly.

Why is there gas?

Think about it — once a whale dies, there are lots of bacteria in its body.

The bacteria break the meat down bit by bit.

While breaking it down, they release lots of gas.

The gas can't get out, so it slowly stays in the belly.

The belly gets bigger and bigger, more and more inflated.

Like one really, really big balloon.

Sometimes, when there's too much gas, it goes "pop" and bursts open.

It really can explode.

So the staff say: don't walk too close.

Stand back a bit, just take a look.

Actually, exploding whales aren't anything new.

They've happened in many countries before.

The most famous one was in the United States, decades ago.

Back then, a big dead whale also washed up on shore.

People didn't know what to do.

Someone came up with a "great idea" — use dynamite.

They put dynamite next to the whale, and "boom."

They thought that solved it.

The result?

The whale was blown into many pieces.

Lots of pieces flew very, very far.

Some even flew into a parking lot and hit cars.

After that, everyone learned:

You can't deal with a dead whale that way.

Back to this whale in Sydney.

Now the staff are being more careful.

Their plan is: first push the whale back into the sea.

Let the seawater carry it away.

Then use a boat to take it to a special place for processing.

But this isn't simple.

Why?

Because that whale is on rocks.

Vehicles can't drive in.

You can only walk in.

And for this kind of thing, you have to watch the weather and the tide.

So it could take several days.

There's a staff member at the park named Neilly.

He has a lot of experience with this kind of thing.

He says: many people will find this scene scary.

But really, this is just how nature looks.

The whale dies, the sharks eat.

After the sharks finish, the whale goes back into nature.

He says, this is a very natural thing.

By the way, there's a special phenomenon in the ocean called a "whale fall."

A "whale fall" is when a whale dies and slowly sinks to the seafloor.

Its meat and its bones feed many, many small animals.

This kind of "feeding" can last for decades.

One dead whale can make life in a patch of sea very rich.

So a whale's death is really another kind of life.

Sounds beautiful, doesn't it?

Back to the whale on that beach.

There's another person in charge of beach safety, named Pearce.

He says: these next few days, please don't go in the water just for fun.

There really are big sharks in the water.

Some people have seen them, said the sharks are huge.

If you go in, you might not come back.

So listen.

There's also one more important point:

Even if you don't go in the water, don't walk too close either.

Why?

Because dead whales carry bacteria.

Those bacteria can make people sick.

Some bacteria jump from animals to humans, and that becomes a problem.

So the best thing is: stand far back and look.

Don't touch.

Don't climb.

Don't take photos up close.

Right now, this is still ongoing.

The dead whale is still on that beach.

The sharks are still swimming around in the water.

The four beaches are still closed.

People don't know how many more days this will take.

But everyone has come to understand one thing:

The death of a whale isn't just its own affair.

It affects the whole sea.

It affects the animals in the sea, and it affects the people on the shore.

Whales are the biggest animal in the ocean.

Even their death is a big deal.

That's the news this week.

One eight-meter-long dead whale.

Four closed beaches.

Many big sharks.

And a slowly-expanding belly.

It sounds like a story, but it's real.

And it's happening right now on a beach in Australia.