Dead Whale

On Monday we drove down to the beach north of Seal Rock to see the 41-foot female grey whale that washed up Saturday morning. Surprisingly, it didn't actually smell that bad, except for the area downwind of the guts hanging out on the left side of the whale. So far, we haven't heard how the whale died. We do know that it died out at sea, the husband of a friend of ours actually saw it out floating in the water during a fishing trip a few days earlier. The guts hanging out are from a partial necropsy done by researchers from the OSU Marine Mammal Program. They also took a few sections of blubber from the whale that were several inches thick.

This is an image of the baleen that whales use to filter amphipods. A friend of mine took the same image the day before when the baleen stretched all the way across the mouth. In my photo you can see that most of the baleen has already been removed, which is actually pretty gutsy when you think about it. Because of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is illegal to be in possession of any marine mammal part (including teeth and skin) and it is also illegal to handle or damage a marine mammal without special permits. This one would be a double "no" because grey whales are actually endangered! If officials find out who took the baleen they face fines of up to ten grand!

Because of the dork that I am, I did have to stick my head in the whales mouth...don't ask me why. The whale was on it's back and actually was surprisingly tall, a good foot taller than I am. They estimated that it weighed about 8 tons.



This is a photo of my roommate and I sitting next to the tail. Most of the skin had already come off of it; it was peeling off like plastic. A lot of us have been discussing what you actually do with a dead animal of this size. We learned from Florence what not to do several years ago (if you don't know what I am talking about, go ahead and google "exploding whale video"). For this whale, a Newport pavement and driveway company received the contract to move and bury the whale (makes you think twice about that nice sand dune you sit on at the beach huh?). Later, they can dig it back up for the skeleton, which can be used for educational purposes.

Post script: Even though you couldn't smell the whale on 3 of the 4 sides, you could smell it several hundred yards away on the highway. We immediately washed everything that we had with us that day because we literally smelled like death...and fish.