By Naomi Klouda
Photo courtesy of Homer Tribune. A worker hauls to shore the body of what is thought to be a Stejneger’s beaked whale in Tutka Bay last week.
Homer Tribune
A whale found floating dead in Tutka Bay last week may be a rare Stejneger’s beaked whale.
If so, professor Debbie Boege-Tobin and her students enrolled in the Semester By the Bay Program at the Kenai Peninsula College’s Kachemak Bay Campus are bestowed with an unusual opportunity.
Boege-Tobin and three students in the program observed the necropsy of the whale Saturday. They gained an up-close and personal look at the 13-foot adult female. The cause of death is unknown.
Dave Seaman, a local boatwright, was in Tutka Bay on Friday when he spotted the whale near the shore.
“It was leaning against the rocks. I grabbed a hold of the tail and wrapped a rope around it then towed it to a dock where I tied it up,” Seaman said. “It didn’t smell too bad, and it was all in one piece. It had a few skin abrasions from rolling on the rocks, and a strange look, like a porpoise’s face pinched into a beak.”
Seaman alerted Angela Doroff of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, who in turn contacted Boege-Tobin.
“Not much is known about the Stejneger’s beaked whale. It is a deep-diving species that they believe feeds almost exclusively on squid. We aren’t out of their range, but it’s unusual to see one here,” Boege-Tobin said. “We had the Homer Veterinary Clinic donate services to X-ray the jaw. The way to distinguish it from other whales is to study their tooth and jaw morphology.”
The Semester By the Bay program is studying X-rays, which are being used to identify the whale. They are 98 percent certain of the species, but won’t know for sure until they receive results from the pathology lab at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward.
Josh Tobin, a stranded mammal volunteer and Boege-Tobin’s husband, took the whale’s skull to the
Photo courtesy of Homer Tribune. Students with the Semester by the Sea program at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kachemak Bay Campus observe a necropsy on what is thought to be a Stejneger’s beaked whale in Tutka Bay last week.
veterinary clinic for it to be X-rayed.
The students helped bury the whale carcass on the beach in horse manure at the end of the six-hour necropsy. Doing so will help speed the decomposition process so the bones can later be retrieved.
“We were given permission to keep the skeleton, so next year we can dig it up and can study its skeleton and articulate it,” Boege-Tobin said.
Once assembled, the campus will be in possession of the skeleton and can exhibit it. Students enrolled in the program now are at work on a gray whale that washed ashore and was buried after necropsy at the beach near Starisky last year. They used the same method for decomposing the flesh. Lee Post, a bone articulation expert, recommended horse manure because it keeps the flesh warm and facilitates decomposition.
The Kachemak Bay Campus isn’t sure if it gets to keep the gray whale, but is hoping to receive a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that would allow the college’s ownership.
“This really furthers our knowledge and will be valuable,” Boege-Tobin said.
In fact, the eight students enrolled in the program have gained a lot of whale experiences lately. They have a Facebook page loaded with whale photos from sojourns in the bay, including the dead whales. The Kachemak Bay Campus launched the Semester by the Bay program this year as a way to offer marine biology majors hands-on experiences observing the abundant ecosystem of Kachemak Bay. Students are enrolled in other colleges, but come to Homer to spend a semester in bayside studies.
Stejneger’s beaked whale range in Arctic waters and the Bering Sea. Sometimes the whale is called the Bering Sea beaked whale or the Saber-toothed whale. Leonhard Hess Stejneger initially described the species in 1885 from a skull, and nothing more of the species was known for nearly a century. The late 1970s saw several strandings. But it wasn’t until 1994 that the external appearance was described from fresh specimens. The most noteworthy characteristic of the male is very large, saberlike teeth.
In the spring, a “Recording Scientific Specimens in 2D and 3D” class will be offered to the general public by Melisse Reichman that will make further use of whale specimens. It is a one-credit art and science class that will look at the whale for drawing, modeling and making sea mounts.
