A rare leviathan washed ashore in Boston Harbor yesterday, bringing with it a mystery and a massive disposal problem.
“It’s a little bit of a conundrum to decide what to do with a floating whale,” said Tony LaCasse with the New England Aquarium.
The dead whale, believed to be a finback, floated in the harbor before washing up on Long Island, which is owned by the city — the first time a whale has been reported this close to Boston in about 20 years.
Not enough of the huge animal was visible to tell what killed it, said LaCasse. The most common unnatural causes of death for the creatures are being entangled in fishing gear or hit by a ship.
“In this particular case there is a lot of blood, which is an indicator of trauma, but we can’t see the trauma,” he said.
Disposing of the whale — which is 55 to 60 feet long and weighs between 75,000 to 90,000 pounds — “can be a considerable expense; it can involve bringing in two or three pieces of heavy equipment for multiple days,” said LaCasse, estimating the cost to be about $10,000 to $20,000.
“We typically use construction Dumpsters to get rid of the soft tissue. The rest will be taken to a landfill.”
According to the Coast Guard, officials will be heading out to Long Island to take samples of the whale for an autopsy and begin the disposal process.
The finback whale, which is found in every ocean on the planet except at the polar ice caps, is the second longest whale in the world and is on the endangered species list. According to LaCasse, it can swim about 25 to 30 mph, earning it the nickname “the greyhound of the sea.”