People got a closeup look at the 70-foot-long blue whale skeleton Thursday before speakers at the Hatfield Marine Science Center told how it all came to be. (Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle)Hundreds gathered Thursday to celebrate the completion of the 70-foot-long blue whale skeleton outside of Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Several speakers told the journey of the adult male whale who washed ashore 11 years ago at Gold Beach and the hundreds of bones that came to Newport.
A team of Hatfield scientists and students spent 10 days stripping the blubber and muscle off the whale before transporting the bones. The jaw bones weighed 600 pounds each, said Marine Mammal Stranding Network program manager Jim Rice.
Marine Mammal Stranding Network director Jim Rice: “It was like Humpty Dumpty …”“Many of the bones were shattered,” Rice told the audience. “It was like Humpty Dumpty and I didn’t think we would be able to have this beautiful articulate skeleton on display.”
Once the bones came to Newport, they soaked in Yaquina Bay for three years in netting to allow animals to further clean the tissue off them. After realizing the magnitude of the undertaking to store and work on the bones, it was clear that preservation would need the work of professionals, said Marine Mammal Institute director Lisa Ballance.
Dinosaur Valley Studios, a Canadian company that usually specializes in Dinosaur skeletons, was up to the task. The feat involved cleaning and preparing 180 bones and reconstruction of the shattered skull which was thought to be damaged by a ship strike. Valar Engineering created the metal structure that gives the illusion of the whale swimming mid-air.
— Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle
The 70-foot-long skeleton of a blue whale that washed ashore near Gold Beach in 2015 is now assembled and on display outside the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. (Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle)
