How do you take apart a 150-tonne whale?

Crews continue to work on taking apart the carcass of a blue whale that washed ashore in a western Newfoundland community earlier this spring.

A team from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) arrived in Trout River on Thursday to start dismantling the carcass of a blue whale that ended up on the town's shoreline.

Using knives and meathooks, 12 people, including ROM staff, contractors from Researching Casting International, and some local hires from Trout River and Woody Point, worked to carve the bones out of the whale carcass.

The ROM is also set to begin work on a second blue whale carcass, located in Rocky Harbour. Both towns are near Gros Morne National Park.

Crews from the museum towed the Trout River whale to Winterhouse Brook in Bonne Bay on Thursday to carry out the work on the carcass.

They've been cutting into the whale to remove blubber and skin in order to reveal and take apart the bones.

The sections of the skeletal structure will be shipped by truck back to the ROM in Toronto for further processing.

Blubber cut away from the carcass is then taken to the Trout River dump, where crews said it will be buried.

ROM officials said they've received a number of calls looking to get access to the whale's DNA, taken from skin and tissue samples.

Blue whales are so rare that scientists believe there are fewer than 250 mature adults in the Northwest Atlantic.

Work on the two carcasses is expected to be finished in about two weeks.