In what will be one of the rankest exhumations ever, a blue whale buried in Prince Edward Island 20 years ago is about to be dug up and shipped to Vancouver.

After two decades in the ground the giant 25-metre corpse - blue whales are the biggest mammals on earth - is still encased in its thick blue rubbery skin, and infused with rancid oil that makes even seasoned biologists gag.

"I have to say there is probably no worse smell in the world than a dead whale,'' says marine biologist Andrew Trites at the University of British Columbia, who has bagged the "national treasure" for the UBC's new biodiversity centre.

The whale washed ashore near Tignish, P.E.I., in 1987. The Canadian Museum of Nature, which had hoped to eventually put the skeleton on display, had the animal buried on nearby provincial land.

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