Authorities in the United States of America have made something of a cock-up after they tried (and failed) to dispose of a 4,000lb dead baby whale in a dumpster.
Unfortunately for them, the whole thing was captured on video by journalist Jason Schreiber.
The whale carcass washed up on Jenness Beach near Rye, New Hampshire on Monday. It is thought that the poor thing got entangled in a load of fishing lines not too far from the coastline and died.
However, the indignity didn't end there for the unlucky creature as, even once dead, the whale's 16-foot body was hauled off the beach with a front-end loading truck and then authorities decided to chuck it unceremoniously into a dumpster to be taken for an examination into how it died.
Problematically, as the dumper truck went to put the carcass into the bin, it missed and the whale simply flopped onto the pavement at the side of the dumpster.
I mean, watching the video it becomes abundantly clear very early on that the whale is not going to fit into the vessel that has been brought for it.
It's obviously a massive whale, but much like - OK, well sort of like - Jaws, they're going to need a bigger bin.
Since the embarrassing ordeal, the Police Chief in charge of proceedings, Kevin Walsh, has whole-heartedly apologised for the mishap and said that it was a simple case of crossed wires that led to whale ending up on the deck.
In his defence, he and his colleagues were trying to remove a potential biohazard as quick as possible. Whales, being mammals, can carry things that can be harmful to humans, and it's also undeniably icky.
He told NBC: "That was a mistake that shouldn't have happened, and I take full responsibility for that,
"We said, 'baby whale,' so everyone thought it was a small whale. We should have measured the length of the animal, so it was clear what size container we would need."
The problem was, by trying to deal with things quickly, they ended up having to leave the poor dead whale on the street overnight until a bigger container could be brought.
Walsh said that the original plan, upon realising the problem, was to drop it diagonally into the bin and then cover up the tail whilst they got it to the place of examination.
Bad luck. The best laid plans and all that...
Featured Image Credit: NBC10 BostonTopics: Police, US News, Whale, Weird, Animals