Editors Note: This item by email from David Morrow, an interpreter with Parks Canada at Gros Morne, Newfoundland tells of his student days at Holland College, and the efforts by his class to assist whale researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The skeleton of this same PEI whale is now the centrepiece of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC, in Vancouver
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There was a news item yesterday about the blue whale that washed up on Nail Pond beach (near Skinners Pond, western PEI) in 1987.
My Renewable Resource Technology class at Holland College helped researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution do a necropsy on that whale in 1987. It was a 73ft female that had been struck & killed accidentally by a ship (probably at night, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River). Later, the carcass was buried and a map made showing the burial location.
Many years later, a museum in BC wanted a blue whale skeleton for a new display, so they traveled to PEI to unearth the skeleton. Despite the many years, when they dug up the carcass, much of the soft tissues were still intact (and very smelly) because the whale had been buried in wet sand. The bones were stripped and cleaned and shipped out to BC.
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There was a news item yesterday about the blue whale that washed up on Nail Pond beach (near Skinners Pond, western PEI) in 1987.
My Renewable Resource Technology class at Holland College helped researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution do a necropsy on that whale in 1987. It was a 73ft female that had been struck & killed accidentally by a ship (probably at night, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River). Later, the carcass was buried and a map made showing the burial location.
Many years later, a museum in BC wanted a blue whale skeleton for a new display, so they traveled to PEI to unearth the skeleton. Despite the many years, when they dug up the carcass, much of the soft tissues were still intact (and very smelly) because the whale had been buried in wet sand. The bones were stripped and cleaned and shipped out to BC.
The skeleton has been assembled and mounted for display at the museum. It is the 4th largest skeleton ever displayed and as a blue whale skeleton: the largest animal to have lived on earth (even bigger than the largest dinosaurs!). The news item stated that it will take a month for the adhesives used in mounting the skeleton to dry and set. Then the display will open to the public.
The things I remember best about the necropsy are: the size of the animal (all thirteen members of our class were able to stand on her back with room to spare). The Woods Hole crew had whalers flensing knives, which they used to strip off blubber samples (some toxins get concentrated in fatty tissues) and to open the body cavity for organ collection. When they did this, a gush of putrid gasses rushed out and the smell almost knocked people over!!
Her eyes were very large (dinner plate size), the Woods Hole crowd had collected them and many other tissue samples to see if feeding blue whales were picking up toxins at the St. Lawrence River mouth. I was the only person to have brought chest waders that day, so I was asked to go collect some baleen plates. Her head was out in about 3ft. of water. I had to wade out and walk over her tongue to get at the baleen plates.
There were krill (primary food of blue whales) stuck up in the bristles of baleen! This was part of her last meal! Krill are shrimp-like crustaceans ~1cm-5cm long: it's ironic that the main food of the largest animal to have ever lived on earth is small animal plankton!
There is a great article in a recent Canadian Geographic magazine about the blue whale in Canada. It was a special issue on Canadian wildlife published in Dec 2009.
Dave
Her eyes were very large (dinner plate size), the Woods Hole crowd had collected them and many other tissue samples to see if feeding blue whales were picking up toxins at the St. Lawrence River mouth. I was the only person to have brought chest waders that day, so I was asked to go collect some baleen plates. Her head was out in about 3ft. of water. I had to wade out and walk over her tongue to get at the baleen plates.
There were krill (primary food of blue whales) stuck up in the bristles of baleen! This was part of her last meal! Krill are shrimp-like crustaceans ~1cm-5cm long: it's ironic that the main food of the largest animal to have ever lived on earth is small animal plankton!
There is a great article in a recent Canadian Geographic magazine about the blue whale in Canada. It was a special issue on Canadian wildlife published in Dec 2009.
Dave
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