{"id":2197,"date":"2009-02-08T11:35:18","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T16:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2197"},"modified":"2010-01-16T13:04:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T18:04:33","slug":"finback-whale-on-ice-eastham-cape-cod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2197","title":{"rendered":"Finback Whale on Ice, Eastham, Cape Cod"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"000\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse with 40-Foot Finback Whale<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First spotted in Wellfleet Harbor on Wednesday, a 40-foot finback whale stranded\u00c2\u00a0six miles down the\u00c2\u00a0shore at Dyer Prince Beach off Boat Meadow Creek in Eastham, Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Ocean effect snow had dropped six to eight inches on the Outer Cape Wednesday night and rescuers discoverd this marine mammal early Thursday morning already\u00c2\u00a0trapped in ice and snow.\u00c2\u00a0 It quickly succumbed to these impossible conditions.<\/p>\n

\"004\"<\/a><\/p>\n

40-Foot Finback Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While we mourn the whale’s passing, these Arctic conditions offered a rare opportunity for scientists and marine educators.\u00c2\u00a0 Rescuers would normally remove the carcass immediately from the beach or perform a detailed\u00c2\u00a0 necropsy in situ, depending on circumstances, to get a jump on decomposition.\u00c2\u00a0 In this case, conditions were simply too harsh, too difficult to operate in the ice … yet the ice also preserved the animal by slowing the process of decomposition.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Physical Survey\u00c2\u00a0of Stranded Finback Whale<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We rarely have a chance to see an intact whale of this size in such pristine condition.\u00c2\u00a0 Even a cursory examination of the finback helps to reverse our preconceptions of whales.\u00c2\u00a0 Our brains have created a whale\u00c2\u00a0image\u00c2\u00a0as a huge, bulky, cumbersome animal, somewhat akin to an elephant with fins rather than feet.<\/p>\n

\"003\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finback Whale: Greyhound of the Sea<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To the contrary, finbacks show how sleek, swift and powerful whales can be.\u00c2\u00a0 The finback is the second largest whale, behind only the blue whale — the largest animal ever to grace Planet Earth, yet finbacks\u00c2\u00a0proudly carry the moniker of greyhounds of the sea<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Finbacks, also called fin whales, are considered an endangered species.<\/p>\n

\"002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finback Whale Baleen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Like other such\u00c2\u00a0great marine mammals, giant finbacks feed on the smallest critters … just lots and lots\u00c2\u00a0of them.\u00c2\u00a0 A toothless or baleen whale, finbacks filter ocean to\u00c2\u00a0sift for\u00c2\u00a0their prey.<\/p>\n

NOTE:\u00c2\u00a0 You may have noticed in the video clip that the finback’s\u00c2\u00a0tail had nearly been severed.\u00c2\u00a0 Vandals had attacked the carcass sometime after rescuers had left on Friday and early Saturday morning, apparently attempting to remove the tail.\u00c2\u00a0 While they didn’t succeed in this attempt, they did manage to make things more difficult for scientists who had hoped to remove the animal after the ice melts by towing it to an appropriate location to conduct a necropsy.\u00c2\u00a0 Typically, towing such a large carcass entails tying a line around the tail.\u00c2\u00a0 Authorities are pursuing leads to identify and apprehend the vandals.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Town of Wellfleet Rescue Team on Lieutenant Island<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After documenting the finback in Eastham, the Turtle Journal team drove to Lieutenant Island in Wellfleet to inspect how our research sites were weathering this harsh winter.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Looking over\u00c2\u00a0Lieutenant Island from Old Wharf heights, we had spotted a number of shellfishermen and aquaculturists working the tidal flats between enormous icebergs.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently, someone had called in a report that one of these folks might be in distress, because as we tried to leave Turtle Point, our path was blocked by several police cruisers, fire trucks and other sundry emergency vehicles.\u00c2\u00a0 Our hats are off to the Wellfleet rescue team.\u00c2\u00a0 They take very seriously any potential threat to life in Arctic-like conditions on the Outer Cape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sue Wieber Nourse with 40-Foot Finback Whale First spotted in Wellfleet Harbor on Wednesday, a 40-foot finback whale stranded\u00c2\u00a0six miles down the\u00c2\u00a0shore at Dyer Prince Beach off Boat Meadow Creek in Eastham, Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Ocean effect snow had dropped six to eight inches on the Outer Cape Wednesday night and rescuers discoverd this marine mammal early Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[823],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2197"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2217,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions\/2217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}