{"id":2334,"date":"2009-02-27T13:49:50","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T18:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2334"},"modified":"2010-01-16T12:50:31","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T17:50:31","slug":"discovery-of-historic-pilot-whale-bones-hints-at-cape-cods-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2334","title":{"rendered":"Discovery of Historic Pilot Whale Bones Hints at Cape Cod’s Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Historic\u00c2\u00a0Pilot Whale Skull\u00c2\u00a0Discovered on Lieutenant Island<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Winter storms and tides pounding Lieutenant Island’s west shore exposed a partially fossilized bone extruding from the low-tide drained beach.\u00c2\u00a0 While I claim no credentials as an archeologist,\u00c2\u00a0 and have only jokingly been analogized as part-Carl Sagan, part-Indiana Jones by a Cape Cod Times columnist<\/a>, I’ve spent enough time scouring Outer Cape shorelines that I can detect\u00c2\u00a0even a fairly small and\u00c2\u00a0obscure\u00c2\u00a0anomaly … in the words of Big Bird, “something that doesn’t belong” … though I may not immediately understand its full scope and importance.\u00c2\u00a0 And so it was yesterday, as I walked the shoreline to check for Asian shore crab activity off the Lieutenant Island seawalls.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

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

Ancient Salt Marsh Peat Field, Southwest Lieutenant Island<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse and I have been watching this area off the southwest coast of the island carefully for the last year, documenting the exposure of thick, rich peat from an ancient salt marsh that once held sway in this spot.\u00c2\u00a0 Over the centuries, the inexorable advance of the bay has pushed the shoreline eastward, exposing and then\u00c2\u00a0subsuming this historic salt marsh\u00c2\u00a0within the inter-tidal zone.\u00c2\u00a0 While every wash-ashore “knows” that erosion and tidal rise begins on the day the sale closes on\u00c2\u00a0their waterfront property, the barrier coastline of the Cape has\u00c2\u00a0defensively rope-a-doped with the sea since the last Laurentian glacier receded tens of thousands of years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 To paraphrase another famous boxer, Joe Louis, “You can run, but you can’t hide.”\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually, the sea wins.\u00c2\u00a0 (ASIDE:\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t believe me, ask the former residents of Billingsgate Island!)<\/p>\n

\"pw-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Partially Fossilized Bone Extruding from Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With my head down scrutinizing every stone and pebble just above the water line, I spotted a strangely shaped\u00c2\u00a0“rock,” which on closer examination gave me the feeling that a pilot whale skeleton might lay underneath.\u00c2\u00a0 The edge of what I assumed\u00c2\u00a0was\u00c2\u00a0bone appeared to be in the process of fossilization, and rather than spongy, the bone seemed to be well preserved and “hard as rock”\u00c2\u00a0in the anoxic peat soil of the\u00c2\u00a0ancient salt marsh.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

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

Excavation of Historic Pilot Whale Skull<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The afternoon was cold and frigid winds whipped across the windward side of Lieutenant Island.\u00c2\u00a0 The last thing I wanted to do was hike back over the dunes to the car, retrieve my too small excavation shovel, trudge back to the beach again\u00c2\u00a0and dig through wet, heavy peat to uncover a pile of rocks and sand, or worse yet to actually find an intact pilot whale skeleton.\u00c2\u00a0 But conscience and curiosity\u00c2\u00a0overcame\u00c2\u00a0cold and inertia.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

Excavated Pilot Whale Skull<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A little investigation and a lot of perspiration yielded a well preserved pilot whale skull that someone must have buried in the ancient salt marsh, after trying or rendering the whale blubbler for oil perhaps a century or two\u00c2\u00a0ago.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0(ASIDE: Trying is the process\u00c2\u00a0of boiling off the blubber to yield precious and very expensive whale oil.) This exciting discovery hints of the historic past of the Outer Cape as a subsistence coastal whaling community, just as it teaches us a tangible lesson about the constantly changing topography of Cape Cod as barrier dunes and salt marshes shift with the advance of tide and time.<\/p>\n

\"pw-005\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Excavated Pilot Whale Jaw Bones<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Only the head had been buried in the former salt marsh by whoever harvested these pilot whales.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest of the carcass was missing.\u00c2\u00a0 My intuition tells me that additional skulls have been buried in this peat field and will become exposed in the days ahead.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

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

Excavated Pilot Whale Skull<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pilot whales, called blackfish by\u00c2\u00a0native Cape Codders, have stranded in Wellfleet Bay over the centuries.\u00c2\u00a0 In ancient times, these strandings\u00c2\u00a0were more frequent and more massive, likely because pilot whale populations were equally larger.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike today, a pilot whale stranding was seen by the community as a bounty from God rather than a natural disaster.\u00c2\u00a0 Subsistence level coastal whaling, practiced on Cape Cod for centuries before and after the arrival of Europeans, consisted first of passively exploiting pilot whale strandings and then more actively of driving blackfish into the shallows to strand.\u00c2\u00a0 The animals were harvested and tried (rendering out the oil) on the shoreline.\u00c2\u00a0 Try island on the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is named for this historic activity.\u00c2\u00a0 Carcasses, especially the skulls, were buried or sunken after trying in the abutting, oozy salt marsh.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\"1902-stranding-cropped\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1902 Pilot Whale (Blackfish) Stranding on Cape Cod Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The photograph above illustrates a “bountious” mass stranding on the shores of Cape Cod in 1902.\u00c2\u00a0 Life on the Outer Cape is hard, and before the days of summer tourists, cell phones and the internet, life was a lot harder.\u00c2\u00a0 The serendipitous stranding of 50 or 100 pilot whales offered the entire community a path to instant prosperity or at least winter survivability.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"2002-stranding-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2002 Pilot Whale (Blackfish) Stranding off Lieutenant Island<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One hundred years later, in 2002, I had the unique and unpleasant opportunity to be the sole eye witness to a mass standing of pilot whales off Lieutenant Island at \u00c2\u00a0six in the morning one late July day.\u00c2\u00a0 The story of that stranding is posted on the Turtle Journal site under the title Two Unforgettable Days<\/a> and a video clip of my kayak paddle to the scene of the stranding can be viewed under Eye Witness to Mass Stranding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"1893-wellfleet-harbor-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1893 Map of Wellfleet Bay<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This map of Wellfleet Bay from 1893 shows Lieutenant Island, then sometimes called Horse Island.\u00c2\u00a0 (ASIDE:\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I can see the head of the horse on the top right, now called the Hook.\u00c2\u00a0 The feet are found at the bottom right, now Turtle Point, and bottom left, the southwest beach.)\u00c2\u00a0 Above (north and east) of Lieutenant Island is Blackfish Creek that earned its name because of pilot whale strandings.\u00c2\u00a0 The 2002 blackfish stranding occurred south and east of Lieutenant Island, in a body of water called the Run.\u00c2\u00a0 I found the buried pilot whale skull on the southwest beach in an area that had once been a protected salt marsh, but is now submerged in the inter-tidal zone.\u00c2\u00a0 (SECOND ASIDE:\u00c2\u00a0 In 1893, salt marshes on the north of Wellfleet Bay had not yet been destroyed by construction of the dike blocking the Herring River and the commercial dock and harbor.\u00c2\u00a0 Terrapins would have LOVED ancient Wellfleet!)<\/p>\n

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

Another Exposed, Partially Fossilized Pilot Whale Bone<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

About 50 feet south of the spot where I found the first exposed, partially fossilized bone, I encountered another exposed bone.\u00c2\u00a0 I did not excavate this bone to discover what might lie below.\u00c2\u00a0 I suspect there will be additional sightings in the next few weeks in this former salt marsh peat field.\u00c2\u00a0 Once spring arrives and summer beaches return, these exposed bones will likely disappear once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historic\u00c2\u00a0Pilot Whale Skull\u00c2\u00a0Discovered on Lieutenant Island Winter storms and tides pounding Lieutenant Island’s west shore exposed a partially fossilized bone extruding from the low-tide drained beach.\u00c2\u00a0 While I claim no credentials as an archeologist,\u00c2\u00a0 and have only jokingly been analogized as part-Carl Sagan, part-Indiana Jones by a Cape Cod Times columnist, I’ve spent enough time […]<\/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\/2334"}],"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=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2361,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}