Carcass butchered, burned | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

A huge whale that washed up on a lonely stretch of beach on the Palliser Coast gave up its jawbone within hours of being discovered, and its carcass not long after.
The 18m sperm whale was found dead late on Thursday at the tip of a rocky outcrop between Ngawi and Mangatoetoe.
Its jawbone had been removed by the time Ngawi mailman Gordon Wyeth reported finding it after being ''given the nod'' by locals.
Mr Wyeth had a cursory look at the whale when it was low tide, but there was a big sea running with a southerly swell.
He said there didn't appear to be any injuries but that the large mammal was on its side and injuries to the underside could have been obscured.
Mr Wyeth photographed it in the company of a Massey University photography student who was in the Cape Palliser area on study leave and took advantage of the chance encounter to add to his photo portfolio.
Yesterday the carcass had been set on fire and was burning furiously when Department of Conservation (DoC) staff arrived to measure and assess the whale.
DoC area manager Chris Lester said ranger Joe Hansen said the bull whale could have been dead several days at sea and had floated on to the beach.
This tied in with reports from commercial fishermen who reported seeing a carcass floating out at sea three or four days ago.
Mr Hansen said the whale may have been injured in a collision with a ship and then made for shore as whales apparently feared dying at sea and, if badly hurt, deliberately swam for land to beach themselves.
The burning carcass made it impossible to properly inspect the dead mammal and robbed it of an opportunity to be properly buried.
Both the taking of the jawbone and teeth and setting the mammal on fire were breaches of environmental law.
Sperm whales have washed up in the same spot in the past with six of the mammals coming to grief in a mass beaching in 1985.
Since then two others had individually beached there prior to this week's dead whale find.