Whale survives harpoon attack 130 years ago to become 'world's oldest mammal'
13th June 2007
Daily Mail
Hunters have discovered a bowhead whale, thought to be the oldest mammal on Earth, which survived a harpoon attack more than a century ago.
The 15-metre whale died when it was shot again last month, but hunters carving it with a chain saw discovered a weapon fragment beneath its blubber dating back to 1879.
The 12.7 cm metal arrow was found in the neck of the 50-ton bowhead whale and suggests the mammal itself could be 130 years old.
"No other finding has been this precise," said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.
130-year-old weapon: The shiny scars on the weapon are a result of the chain saw cut
Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses.
It is rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.
The bomb lance fragment, lodged between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.
It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890.
The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale.
Bowhead whale: Thought to live up to 200 years but the recent discovery is the best proof yet
The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.
"The device exploded and probably injured the whale," Bockstoce said.
"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," he said. "He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."
The fragment alongside a similar but unfired bomb lance patented in 1885.
The whale harkens back to far different era. If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877.
"It's unusual to find old things like that in whales, and I knew immediately that it was quite old by its shape," said Craig George, a wildlife biologist for the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management, who was called down to the site soon after it was found.
The revelation led George to return to a similar piece found in a whale hunted near St. Lawrence Island in 1980, which he sent to Bockstoce to compare.
"We didn't make anything of it at the time, and no one had any idea about their lifespan, or speculated that a bowhead could be that old," George said.
Famous novel: Captain Ahab, leading his crew on a hunt for the great whale Moby Dick
Bockstoce said he was impressed by notches carved into the head of the arrow used in the 19th century hunt, a traditional way for the Alaskan hunters to indicate ownership of the whale.
Whaling has always been a prominent source of food for Alaskans, and is monitored by the International Whaling Commission.
A hunting quota for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission was recently renewed, allowing 255 whales to be harvested by 10 Alaskan villages over five years.
After it is analyzed, the fragment will be displayed at the Inupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska.
dailymail.co.uk
13th June 2007
Daily Mail
Hunters have discovered a bowhead whale, thought to be the oldest mammal on Earth, which survived a harpoon attack more than a century ago.
The 15-metre whale died when it was shot again last month, but hunters carving it with a chain saw discovered a weapon fragment beneath its blubber dating back to 1879.
The 12.7 cm metal arrow was found in the neck of the 50-ton bowhead whale and suggests the mammal itself could be 130 years old.
"No other finding has been this precise," said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.
130-year-old weapon: The shiny scars on the weapon are a result of the chain saw cut
Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses.
It is rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.
The bomb lance fragment, lodged between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.
It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890.
The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale.
Bowhead whale: Thought to live up to 200 years but the recent discovery is the best proof yet
The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.
"The device exploded and probably injured the whale," Bockstoce said.
"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," he said. "He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."
The fragment alongside a similar but unfired bomb lance patented in 1885.
The whale harkens back to far different era. If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877.
"It's unusual to find old things like that in whales, and I knew immediately that it was quite old by its shape," said Craig George, a wildlife biologist for the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management, who was called down to the site soon after it was found.
The revelation led George to return to a similar piece found in a whale hunted near St. Lawrence Island in 1980, which he sent to Bockstoce to compare.
"We didn't make anything of it at the time, and no one had any idea about their lifespan, or speculated that a bowhead could be that old," George said.
Famous novel: Captain Ahab, leading his crew on a hunt for the great whale Moby Dick
Bockstoce said he was impressed by notches carved into the head of the arrow used in the 19th century hunt, a traditional way for the Alaskan hunters to indicate ownership of the whale.
Whaling has always been a prominent source of food for Alaskans, and is monitored by the International Whaling Commission.
A hunting quota for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission was recently renewed, allowing 255 whales to be harvested by 10 Alaskan villages over five years.
After it is analyzed, the fragment will be displayed at the Inupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska.
dailymail.co.uk