{"id":304600,"date":"2025-11-21T05:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304600\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T05:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:42:07","slug":"tribute-planned-for-dead-whale-on-nantucket-beach-whales-jaw-removed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304600\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute planned for dead whale on Nantucket beach; whale\u2019s jaw removed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nantucket residents were encouraged on Thursday to pay their respects to a 52-ton sperm whale<\/a> that washed up dead on the island on Sunday before it gets towed back out to sea, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany have come to see the animal and pay respects with flowers and petals,\u201d the Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket said in a press release. \u201cIt is a sad event, but a rare learning opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whale, which is too large to be moved to a location where a necropsy could be performed to determine its cause of death, had its jaw excised by NOAA\u2019s Office of Law Enforcement on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a preemptive act so people wouldn\u2019t take teeth,\u201d Robert Rocha, associate curator of science and research at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, said in a phone interview Thursday. \u201cIt is a temptation for people to try to get those teeth and keep them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Using whale\u2019s teeth for arts and crafts, also known as \u201cscrimshaw,\u201d is an art form that originated on old whaling ships, according to Rocha.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a way to pass time, keep people occupied when there was downtime,\u201d Rocha said.<\/p>\n

Town manager Libby Gibson said at a select board meeting on Wednesday that there is no set date when the whale will be removed. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is gonna hopefully happen soon, before Thanksgiving,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cPlans are underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whale has been anchored to shore, and biologists from the International Fund for Animal Welfare are set to arrive on the island to perform an \u201con-site examination,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to learn as much as possible about this individual and hopefully find some evidence of cause of death of this magnificent animal,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\n

Rocha said it isn\u2019t normal for a whale of that size and weight to wash up on a beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on what they said about his length and weight, that was a pretty robust, healthy animal,\u201d Rocha said.<\/p>\n

The skeleton of a whale that washed ashore in Nantucket in 2002 hangs in the New Bedford museum. Rocha said a necropsy on that whale revealed damage on the ribcage likely endured during a sudden rise to the surface.<\/p>\n

With officials likely unable to perform a full necropsy on this whale, Rocha said officials will have trouble finding out its cause of death.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t get the big gear that helps you do that, it makes it really hard to take a look,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Officials said the whale washed up on a popular swimming beach and allowing it to decompose \u201cwould cause serious hazard to beach goers, swimmers, and vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the whale here has been a sobering event, but has provided a learning experience for all,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\n

Truman Dickerson can be reached at truman.dickerson@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nantucket residents were encouraged on Thursday to pay their respects to a 52-ton sperm whale that washed up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-304600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}