One of the best things ever put on the internet. - On November 9, 1970, a 45-foot-long (14 m) sperm whale washed ashore at Florence on the central Oregon Coast. The weight of the carcass was estimated at 8 short tons (16,000 lb; 7,300 kg). At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the state's Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United States Navy, decided to remove the whale using dynamite – assuming that the resulting pieces would be small enough for scavenger animals to consume. George Thornton, the engineer in charge of the operation, told an interviewer that he was not sure how much dynamite would be needed, saying that he had been chosen to remove the whale because his supervisor had gone hunting. A charge of one-half short ton (450 kg) of dynamite was selected.