news story / By Jenoa Briar-Bonpane

Petrolia’s Whale Tale

What happens when a sperm whale washes up on your beach

(March 6, 2008)  Standing five-foot-seven and wielding a two-foot whale-flensing blade, ecstatic marine mammologist Jeff Jacobsen couldn’t see over the towering head of the stranded sperm whale he was carving last Tuesday. Though difficult for a lay person to discern where the abdomen of a whale even begins, veteran flenser Jacobsen definitively leaned on the wooden handle, burying the tip of the blade into what appeared to be its belly.

The moment his massive knife penetrated the nearly nine centimeters of blubber, a foghorn bellow emitted from the gash to announce a stinky release of postmortem pressure. The sound was deep and resonant and lasted for a full two minutes. Reverent volunteer biologists from Humboldt State’s Vertebrate Museum and curious locals stepped back to avoid the ensuing wave of foul smelling air that rolled up the beach.

Jeff Jacobsen carves the stranded sperm whale on petrolia’s mattole beach. Photo by Jenoa Briar-Bonpane

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Since these animals fall under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is illegal for anyone to remove or possess any part of the whale. Penalties include jail time and a $10,000 fine. The HSU Vertebrate Museum holds an exclusive permit allowing it to collect samples and look for a smoking gun to determine cause of death. This time, the research team came up empty-handed. Finding the stomach empty, there was no obvious ingested toxin that might explain the 10-15 year old whale’s death. DNA screening for toxins and pathogens may reveal more about where the whale had traveled and what he’d been eating.

Landing just south of the river mouth on Petrolia’s Mattole Beach amidst so many miles of pristine coastline, it’s remarkable that the 32-foot cadaver happened to get stuck at the end of the short path that leads from the parking lot to the beach. For most Petrolia residents, this conspicuous stranding created a serendipitous opportunity to glimpse the world’s largest toothed mammal. Though the pleasure of tourists isn’t a high priority on the minds of most Petrolians, one can’t help but imagine that the oozing carcass might be less enchanting to road-weary visitors, eager for the fresh scent of salty air and unspoiled vacation landscape.

Known for their deep diving abilities (one to two miles) and highly evolved sonar structures, sperm whales are designed to find and eat giant squid. Circular suction marks left by enormous squid were clearly visible on the head and back of the whale discovered in Petrolia — apparent scars from one of these legendary deep-sea battles. Despite having the largest noses on the planet, sperm whales have little or no sense of smell and instead use their bulbous snouts to make sounds to find and stun prey. Sperm whales stay within 20-30 degrees of the equator, except for adolescent males who make solo excursions northward to gorge and grow (ultimately more than 1.5 times the length of females) before returning south to play the mating game.

Grey whale strandings in California are not uncommon, according to Joe Cordaro, Wildlife Biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. The stranding of a sperm whale, however, is a truly rare event. Oddly enough, another one turned up on the beach in Crescent City a few weeks ago, dead after eating 50 pounds of plastic fish netting. Two sperm whales in one month, says Cordaro, is not necessarily cause for alarm, but “if a third one comes up, I’d raise my antenna and want to do a more thorough examination.”

Now that the scientists have gone back to town and the blubber has begun to settle, so to speak, the question remains as to what should be done with 13 stinking tons of decaying mammal on Mattole Beach.

Turns out that nothing brings a community together quite like a beached whale. As with most topics in Petrolia, opinions and rumors are plentiful and diverse. Let the scavengers do their job,” says Ken Young, a board member of the Community Center, the Mattole Restoration Council and the Historical Society. he’ll say, “It’s the natural way, it’s less expensive, and it’s sustainable.”

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