A whale of a sick idea done twice.

[Saiyaman]

Okay one of the most absurd things I ever read about was a whale exhibit from the early fifties to the mid sixties where they did a tour of Europe and the USA with an actual prepped whale on a flat back truck. But then I found that it was actually two separate whale exhibitions run by two separate equally sick minded individuals.

The first was Danish multi millionaire Leif Sögaard, who according to legend got inspired when his young son asked him what a whale looked like. So Sögaard figured it to be of great educational value to get a whale get it conserved by a good taxidermist and show it to the world.

So how does one get a whale?

Like this.

Sögaard got in touch with a Norwegian whaling company and bought a freshly killed Female Finwhale which he named Mrs Haroy. But he quickly learned from the whalers that there was no way a whale could be conserved in a way a taxidermist could conserve for example a bear, because a whale's skin is very thin and has a layer of blubber that simply rots when you leave it out too long.

So in order to get the whale to stay good, Sögaard got in touch with a professor who was doing experiments with a new kind of formaldehyde, a chemical commonly used to conserve human bodies for medical purposes. Sögaard certainly cut no corners into prepping Mrs Haroy for her long tour no less that 7000 liters of the stuff was pumped into the veins in a reasonably successful effort to make the whale ready for exhibition. In addition, Mrs Haroy got a reinforced steel skeleton to make her look proud instead of a flabby, blubbered out, dead whale on the slaughter deck of a whaling station.
A taxidermist inside Mrs Haroy applying formaldehyde.

And so Mrs. Haroy went on tour. Whith a whale expert telling about the whale and answering questions but while on tour in the Netherlands Sögaard suddenly got news he never suspected: there was another Whale exhibition very similar to his own. This one was organized by J. Menden, a Norwegian professor who also had the idea of prepping a whale and to showcase it around the world.

So Menden got himself a whale...
https://encrypted-tbn3.***********/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiR1VIF5HcCLEbV3WWziTbZbdNQkw_lH3JDySFAQCi6dLx3oaohg
Yup back then that was the only way sadly...

And went quite a bit further than Sögaard as he actually had the inside of the whale prepped with liquid plastic and a row of light bulbs running along the spine so people could actually walk in.
https://encrypted-tbn1.***********/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkOJgu5-LGZaDH47YEjiVSwPhQy8k6qZ8qXzswvhSJMy_-KRVO
Jonah the whale on exhibit, as you can tell Jonah was actually quite a bit smaller than Mrs Haroy, also evident here is the fact that when Mrs Haroy was caught Sögaard had asked the whalers to keep her intact as best as possible, with Jonah however, the fact that his flukes have been cut off. (A normal procedure officially meant to ease transport but many whalers do it because of superstition: a whale's tail is a deadly weapon and to cut the flukes off basically means that you've diffused a bomb.) And the fact that a whaler's harpoon cannon and an explosive harpoon is displayed along side it was very clear that Menden intended Jonah to be a promotion tool in favor of whaling.

Sögaard and Menden met and discussed the matter and decided not to be competition and frequently checked their tour schedules so to make sure they wouldn't intertwine with each other.

For Mrs Haroy however, it was the end of the line at the start of her USA tour, the local authorities, fearful of the health hazard of formaldehyde (which by then people had found out could cause cancer) decided to cancel the tour and for Mrs Haroy to be destroyed, she was taken to a beach near Coney Island and burned. Sögaard apparently found it an "undignified end" to such a beautiful creature.

As for Jonah, at the end of his tour through Europe and North Africa he was brought to a warehouse on the Netherlands and Belgian border where he was stored for 36 years before being brought South Yorkshire and put in storage and that's where he remains today.

Sixty years after he was caught Jonah is in remarkable condition, a creepy, perverse freakshow, lying along side the kind of harpoons used to kill him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/sheffield/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8174000/8174297.stm

 

[sr71plt]

I'm struggling to figure out why taking a stuffed whale to the interior of a country as an educational exhibit is either absurd or sick.

 

[TE999]

I'm struggling to figure out why taking a stuffed whale to the interior of a country as an educational exhibit is either absurd or sick.

Nature was viewed differently in times past. People were fascinated by animals then as they are now, but they wanted their specimens up close where they could see them; hence zoos had cages rather than natural habitats and stuffed animals were preferable to live ones, especially in museums. It wasn't thought to be cruel, just practical.

Building a tank to hold a whale wasn't practical and few could visit them in a boat, so a stuffed whale was the result.

African safaris and tiger hunts in India were common before and between the World Wars and animal trophies were prized; especially those of 'savage' carnivores.

President 'Teddy' Roosevelt personally shot hundreds of animals on his hunting expeditions and African safaris. He didn't shoot a bear cub on a hunting trip and thus the 'Teddy Bear' came to be.

J.J. Audubon shot, stuffed and mounted all the birds he painted; they wouldn't hold still otherwise and there were no cameras.

Frank Buck, the explorer and animal hunter's slogan was 'Bring 'em back alive' because he was one of the few who did. He made a fortune selling his specimens to zoos and circuses.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, and? I'm not seeing where it makes this either absurd or sick. A lot of people still want to see their world real rather than (or in addition to) on a computer screen.

 

[TE999]

Yes, and? I'm not seeing where it makes this either absurd or sick. A lot of people still want to see their world real rather than (or in addition to) on a computer screen.

Oh, I see, pardonnez moi, you were referring to the OP's first paragraph. My explanation should have been directed to him.

Ah well, maybe he'll read my post anyway and be enlightened.

 

[Saiyaman]

So what makes this sick?

The conservation of the first whale I mentioned didn't work all that well and the whale became a health hazard because of the rotting flesh and the fact that the preservative used could actually cause cancer.

People who have been to that display recalled the terrible stench.

 

[sr71plt]

So what makes this sick?

The conservation of the first whale I mentioned didn't work all that well and the whale became a health hazard because of the rotting flesh and the fact that the preservative used could actually cause cancer.

People who have been to that display recalled the terrible stench.

According to that longwinded first post (which didn't look all that erotic to me), as soon as the whale started rotting and becoming a health hazard, they took it off the exhibit. So, I still don't see the absurd or sick part (not to mention scratching my head on what this is doing on an erotica discussion board to begin with).

Do you just trot around the Internet doling these little "gems" out on any discussion board you find?

 

[Saiyaman]

According to that longwinded first post (which didn't look all that erotic to me), as soon as the whale started rotting and becoming a health hazard, they took it off the exhibit. So, I still don't see the absurd or sick part (not to mention scratching my head on what this is doing on an erotica discussion board to begin with).

Do you just trot around the Internet doling these little "gems" out on any discussion board you find?

Oh please not this again, look at what else is posted in this part of the forum: threads about politics, about the Armageddon, about the shooting in that school, about Gun control, about Tom Cruise' new role in a movie he's gonna star in.

There's so many threads in the Author's hangout that have nothing to do with Erotica and yet you always single out mine, you've responded to my threads previously.

I did threads about what concerned me about nature conservation and my interest in music and aviation and people have been very enthusiastic about them even though they have nothing to do with erotica, in fact you are the only one who points that out in every single thread.

So what is your problem then, if you already know before hand that most of my threads in the Author's hangout aren't about erotica, then why on earth do you even bother to read them and reply?

 

[trysail]

Originally Posted by sr71plt
According to that longwinded first post (which didn't look all that erotic to me),...

Face it, Saiyaman, you're dealing with an out-and-out nutjob.


You posted an interesting story. Thanks.

 

[sr71plt]

So what is your problem then, if you already know before hand that most of my threads in the Author's hangout aren't about erotica, then why on earth do you even bother to read them and reply?

My basic problem is that you labeled it absurd and sick. I asked why. Haven't seen the answer to that. I'd say the choice of post is a bit absurd, though. And the possibility of sick hangs out there too.

 

[Handley_Page]

In the 1950s when I was at school, I was surprised to see a large open-sided trailer with a whale on it as an exhibit. I remember that there was a separate jar with an eyeball in it. It was Huge!