A blue whale skeleton is being assembled at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. The project is the culmination of more than 10 years of effort.
The dead whale washed up on a beach in southern Oregon in late 2015. Scientists from the Marine Mammal Institute responded. The Institute’s Director, Lisa Ballance, told KLCC it's rare for blue whales to wash ashore.
“It was the vision of my predecessor, the first Marine Mammal Institute Director Bruce Mate, to salvage the bones and clean them and put them back together here at Hatfield campus,” she said. “And that’s what’s happening outside my window as we speak.”
She said they’ve been working through the process ever since. That included cleaning the flesh off the bones, and further cleaning them by soaking them in Yaquina Bay for three years.
“By putting them in the bay, we took advantage of all of the marine organisms that are in there that are scavengers by nature,” Ballance said. “They’re attracted to the flesh on the bones and over time they eat the flesh away and do a really good job of cleaning it for us.”
Then they had to remove about 200 gallons of oil out of the bones. They worked with fossil-exhibit experts Dinosaur Valley Studios in Alberta, Canada to complete the work.
Balance said there are maybe 20 intact blue whale skeletons on display in the world. This one is 70 feet long and weighs 5,500 pounds.
“I think one of the most significant parts of the importance of this is the inspiration that it’s going to generate for everyone who happens upon it,” she said.
Ballance said she sees this whale skeleton exhibit as a huge legacy for OSU and the Hatfield Marine Science Center. She hopes the exhibit will grab visitors’ attention.
“Making them stop in their tracks and just be overpowered with the awesomeness of this animal,” she said. “That’s important to me because I think humans need to know and care about things before they will take care of them.”
Blue whales are listed as endangered, but Ballance said they’ve made a comeback from near extinction when whaling decimated great whale populations.
Ballance said because blue whales are the largest whales, they were the first to be hunted.
“So their numbers dropped to very low levels. Same with all whales that were hunted. After the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act were enacted in the early 1970s providing protection and commercial whaling ceased to be a thing, whales started to recover.”
Ballance said it’s not uncommon to see blue whales off the Oregon coast.
Two web cams are set up to watch the skeleton assembly. Hatfield Marine Science Center will have a grand opening event later this year.
