A two tonne whale’s head has been excavated from the ground after a 10 hour dig in Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula, as scientists hope to memorialise and learn from the dead mammal.
A team of scientists used specialist vacuum excavation equipment to painstakingly remove soil over the course of 10 hours. They had waited five years to excavate the skull, after a 60-foot female fin whale, the second largest marine animal on Earth, was given a burial after being found stranded on a beach in Parbean Cove.
Despite efforts at the time by specialists from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue team to keep the mammal alive, the whale was found to be severely malnourished and couldn’t survive the beaching. The organisation said that the animal had “numerous superficial injuries all over its body” and some deeper ones – especially around its tail – when medics arrived.
The whale’s two-tonne head was given to ecologist, Professor Robbie McDonald, then a professor in the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter, by the Duchy of Cornwall at the time.
Samples were taken of the whale’s baleen plates, which are used to sieve krill and plankton, which can help to learn about the whale’s living conditions before it died, which could help support the longer term monitoring of marine creature strandings.
The fin whale was found stranded on a Cornwall beach in February 2020 and later died (British Divers Marine Life Rescue)
The ecologist then arranged for it to be buried in specially prepared soil in a research field close to the Penryn campus in Falmouth so that it could be cleaned to be put on display. Over the course of five years, organisms in the soil had stripped the skull clean bar one piece of blubber. The skull now sits in the research field in the latest process of cleaning, where the rain washes it and the sun bleaches it.
Prof McDonald told The Independent that the beaching of the whale had a profound impact on the local community. “There were people saying little prayers and putting flowers on it as well because, I think people feel the death of such a magnificent animal,” he said.
“They take it to heart.”
It took 10 hours to excavate the whale from the soil (University of Exeter)
It remains unconfirmed what will happen to the whale skull, although possibilities remain at a permanent installation will be created on the University of Exeter’s Penryn campus.
Prof McDonald said he hoped that it would become a monument to serve as “a very visual striking, monumental reminder of marine life at risk”.
“The fin whales used to be a very abundant species,” he said. “But in the 20th century, about 750,000 fin whales were killed for commercial whaling, and that commercial whaling didn’t stop in the North Atlantic until the late eighties.”
The skull now sits in the Penryn Campus research field where it is being washed by the rain (University of Exeter)
He added that there remained a chance for the skull to act as a memorial to the individual animal.
“We shouldn’t walk past the fact that this was an individual animal and it’s evoked a lot of emotional reactions from the people who saw that happen.”