New video footage shows crews in New Hampshire attempting to – and failing to – successfully drop a whale carcass inside a dumpster by using a front loader.

According to the TODAY Show, the mammal weighing 4,000 pounds is a minke whale that was found washed ashore in Jenness Beach in Rye, New Hampshire.

In the video, the dead whale body can be seen bouncing off the rim of the large dumpster and falling to the pavement, as onlookers nearby can be heard gasping at the scene.

“It seems strangely wrong,” one person on Twitter wrote in reaction to the video. “Wouldn't towing it out to sea be more appropriate?”

“Pretty morbid but this was an actual scene in family guy....” another Twitter user added referencing a scene in US animated sitcom Family Guy.

Officials planned to return with a larger dumpster and to test the mammal to determine the cause of death.

On Monday afternoon, the Seacoastonline reported that the juvenile whale was found at 6am local time by someone walking along the beach.

Jenn Kennedy, executive director of Blue Ocean Society, told the publication that the whale was 16 feet long and that its species has an average lifespan of about 40 to 50 years.

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New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse added that two or three of the minke species died in the Seacoast region during the past year but that it was not “completely clear” what the cause of those deaths were.

Mr LaCasse, a spokesman for New England Aquarium, said his organisation will likely assist with the necropsy, a term for used mostly for an autopsy performed on an animal.

Ashley Stokes, manager of the Seacoast Science Centre’s Marine Mammal Rescue Team, described the incident involving the whale as "unfortunate" in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader.