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Hi I am chasing a few opinions on the effects of burying a dead whale on the beach, mainly on whether the carcass will slowly release oil and potentially attract sharks. A baby pilot whale was washed up on my local at casuarina beach and buried about 300m from where I and my three sons surf regularly. I am told that a whale carcass was also buried at Ballina in the same vicinity as the recent attacks.
What are also some other options to dispose of the carcass?
well.....
Its not too politically correct these days, 
but - years ago - dead whales have been towed well out to sea, and dispersed with copious amounts of Dr Nobel's rapidly expanding bait.
or, dragged ashore and turned into meat meal for stock feed, and blood and bone type fertilizers.
I'm pretty sure option #1 is frowned upon due to tree hugging latte sipping hippy types[collectively known as sooks] being incredibly noisy whingers and spoilsports,
and option #2 is illegal due to anti-whaling legislation banning the use of dead whales - no matter how they became bigger and stinkier than usual.
stephen
Had to laugh try this......
A buried whale at Middleton Beach in Albany had to be dug up and removed after sharks refused to leave the area. Its downright stupid to bury a whale anywhere near the water IMHO 
A whale head and neck, was buried about 1k north of where I live. A diver was killed by a shark about 300 offshore of the burial site within a year or two. It was a few (7 or 8)years ago so I forget the exact timing.
I think it's a bad idea!
The only place they buried a whale (metro) in WA is dead centre for most of the shark activity and a couple of fatals. Hmmm
If they reckon fertilising your lawn releases stuff into the river 1km away, then you can't argue 10 tonnes of fat won't do the same when it is 20m away!!!!!
The Mid North Coast NSW has seen a few wash up in the last 10 years, a couple of them have been removed from the beach and buried at the local tip, while a few have been buried in the dunes where they washed up. We have heaps of sharks in the area.
Chop them up, pop them on a boat and dump them 10 nm out at sea. That would be a good job for the worst of the prison type folk. Maybe they could put a few chunks into backpacks for the seediest of them and have them swim it out there.
Sadly there would still be a lot of crap left on the beach and it would still attract some sea life until a good winter storm cleaned it all up again.
I also believe that burying a whale in sand close to the beach is a poor idea.
In my opinion it is kind of a drip feed burley trail for sharks.
As the blubber breaks down into a slick can it not then flow through the wet sand water table with both tidal & weather events ?
This well filtered slick would remain mostly unseen to all but the keenest eye as it is delivered deep in the water , however a local water test sample may be able to pick up pathogens form the decomposition if the PPMs are elevated enough ?
More than 2 cents worth I know.
Tow them way out to sea .
Sell the carcase to the Japs so they can do their scientific reserch and leave the live ones alone.
Thanks for the feedback. Have tried contacting several people that should know but Xmas time holidays. There is a group that have volunteered to dig up and move 30m further into dunes where big swells haven't reached in some time. I'm not sure if this will be the solution but better than where it is.
How long has this whale has been buried? It will be a bit rank by now if it's more than a couple of days. For such a small whale I'm surprised it wasn't towed out to sea to start with - doable with a baby pilot, not to easy with a baby humpback.
