Is that a Dead Whale?

Tracy and I took Benson for a walk down one of our favorite trails last weekend. The trail takes you (unofficially) across some railroad tracks and onto the Puget Sound shoreline in Everett. We noticed something very large and grey floating in the water... and wondered if it could be a whale. It was too far in out in the water to really tell. It was so strange.

Later, we ran across this story in the local newspaper:

Scientist sails away with his dead whale

After languishing on a waiting list for three years, David Duggins finally got his wish: a big, stinking, rotting whale carcass. The University of Washington kelp forest ecologist recently scored the dead 54-foot-long fin whale found last week bobbling along in Everett's waters. "You wouldn't think the list is long, but between researchers and tribes, it's long," he said from his office at Friday Harbor Labs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service estimates only a dozen dead whales are found in Washington and Oregon every year. Most die at sea and are never recovered.

Duggins can't wait to study the decomposing whale up close. He pulled it from the Port of Everett to Friday Harbor on Tuesday, towing it with short steel cables attached to his research boat. The sight drew stares from other boaters as he pulled his prize through the Swinomish Channel, right past the touristy shops of downtown La Conner. In the next few days, Duggins plans to sink the carcass beneath 100 feet of water near San Juan Island, weighting it down with railroad wheels strung together with wire cables. He hopes the experiment will advance the world's understanding of how nutrients released on the ocean floor from whale carcasses affect the marine ecosystem...