Whale Explodes!

Gas builds up as the animal’s viscera and stomach contents decompose, but whale skin and blubber are tough. The massive throat pouch that you see inflating in all the pictures is designed to fill with seawater and then force it out through baleen [the keratin plate that whales use to filter food].

It can handle a lot of pressure.[Usually what] causes whales to explode is people doing stuff to them, either from bystanders trying to climb on or take a souvenir from the carcass, crews trying to move the carcass, or, in the case of the Faroes exploding sperm whale, intentionally degassing it (graphic video). That’s one very good reason you should never approach a dead-whale carcass.