Though blue whales are rare off the coast in Oregon, the carcass of one washed ashore about a week ago and researchers are now working to extract its skeleton.
According to The Register Guard, the beached whale appeared on Oregon's shore north of Gold Beach in Curry County. The blue whale, a rare species in the Pacific Northwest, was about 78 feet long and weighed more than 100 tons.
Average in size, the blubber particular blue whale was about three times thinner than what is considered healthy. But the whale apparently died two weeks before it washed ashore, and its depleted blubber could also have been the result of its death.
"The blubber layer was emaciated - 4 inches or less," Calum Stevenson, an ocean shores specialist with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, told The Register Guard. "It wasn't in great shape. It may have been weakened, and then attacked by the predators."
The whale offers local authorities a rare opportunity, as the researchers plan to bring the skeleton to the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute in Newport for preservation and display.
"We don't usually see blue whales this close in," Stevenson told The Register Guard, noting that gray whales are more common. "They are not even on our radar for Whale Watch because they are so uncommon.
"It's pretty unusual for a museum to display a blue whale skeleton."
Workers have been tediously peeling back the whale's layers of blubber since last week, a process expected to last the remainder of this week and possibly into next.
