27/10/2023
This was one tough and messy job!
So incredibly thankful for my amazing mentor Ingrid for this opportunity!
This is a juvenile male northern bottlenose whale.
He stranded back in August, and was found dead though it may have been a live stranding based on injuries to the skull found as we worked on it that could have resulted from thrashing against the rocks. The tide last month rose incredibly high, so the body was driven further up the rocks than where the water would normally come to. He was surprisingly intact internally despite being dead for so long, his stomachs were quite bare and clean so he hadn’t eaten much. This is a deep diving whale that feeds primarily on squid, we found 4-6 squid beaks in his stomach. Around 5.8m in length, this species can 9.8m when mature! Under 50 strandings have been recorded over the whole island of Ireland, so this was a rare find.
Two very tough days of flensing him and reducing him to bone so he could be buried for later articulation and display for the National Trust! I got to work with friends and an incredible trio from Bouten & Zoon taxidermy. Absolutely a once in a lifetime experience!
Cetaceans are heavily protected, this work was licensed and carried out legally with a whole lot of permits!
