[MRSallee]

I don't know that it was every common to blow them up. There's a news report from the '70s, widely watched on YouTube, of a whale carcass exploded by dynamite in Oregon. It didn't go well for them.

[r0muald]

You can read more about the “Exploding whale” on Wikipedia, too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale