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| Photos by Rick Schultze |
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Gray matter
Beached whale draws crowds
[ We couldn't resist... take a stroll down memory lane. ]
Posted May 30, 2007
This week, the biggest attraction on the central Oregon coast has not been the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the Tillamook Cheese Factory or the Tanger Outlet Mall. Instead, residents and visitors have been flocking to see a smelly, gigantic dead whale, which has been rotting on a rocky section of beach near Newport since Sunday, May 27.
It’s certainly been on the mind of the visitors who have poured into the Hatfield Marine Science Center, said marine educator Bill Hanshumaker.
“It’s the first Tuesday we’ve been open since we started summer hours, and I really didn’t expect to see so many people,” Hanshumaker said. “And they all wanted to know about the whale.”
Biologists who have visited the deceased say that it is a 41-foot-long female California gray whale, which probably weighs about 8 tons. It most certainly died offshore; the U.S. Coast Guard saw it floating near Newport on Saturday.
“It’s difficult to say how long it’s been dead, but it’s decayed enough to float,” Hanshumaker said.
It’s not unusual for dead whales to float ashore, said Jim Rice, an Oregon State University researcher and Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator. He collects data and tissue samples from any mammal found on Oregon’s beaches, including a sperm whale that landed near Florence in February and another near Beverly Beach in 2006, and submits the information to a national database.
Usually, these mortalities don’t attract much attention, he said. This one drew a crowd, he surmises, because it arrived in the middle of a holiday weekend with good weather, and was found in an easily accessible location between Seal Rock and Ona Beach state parks.
“Most of the time, the whales aren’t so easily accessible, and people aren’t willing to trek out to where they are. This time, people were looking for something to do,” Rice said.
In fact, people have been approaching, touching and even vandalizing the whale, Rice said. This act is not only illegal but unhealthy, as the whale could be carrying a wide variety of parasites.
Officials are looking for the person who removed the baleen from the right side of its mouth. Handling or damaging the body of an endangered marine mammal is federal offense and carries a $10,000 fine. If you have any information on this crime, call 800-452-7888.
On Monday, scientists from the OSU Marine Mammal Program performed a limited necropsy on it, taking parts of blubber and other body samples back to their laboratory. Rice said that activity is basically over, because the organs have deteriorated beyond any scientific use.
What’s next? Whales have died on Oregon beaches before; typically, they’re moved up to the high tide line and buried with heavy equipment. That won’t be easy in this case, because the whale is resting on a shallow layer of sand on bedrock. It’s at least a mile from the nearest possible burial site, Rice said.
They were hoping that a high tide on Wednesday night (after the OCT went to press) would take it out to sea, or at least closer to the deep sand. If not, a Newport pavement and driveway company (with one extremely lucky backhoe operator) “won” the contract to move and bury the whale. Work could start as early as Thursday. The sooner the better, according to most who have enjoyed its growing aroma.
Hanshumaker, who often handles marine mammal dissections and necropsies, hopes that after a few years, he’ll be allowed to dig the naturally-cleaned bones back up and articulate them for display.
“I’m not sure I’ll be (given the skeleton). Maybe somebody else has claims on it,” he said.
He’s tried this process before, with a whale that washed up on the beach seven years ago. He had planned to exhume it and put it back together at the OSU Veterinary College. Now, he can’t find where the body was buried.
“This time, I left a message with the Oregon State Parks, to make sure that someone marks it well with Global Positioning System coordinates,” he said.
- Story by Niki Price
- Photos by RIck Schultze for the Oregon Coast Today
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