Kodiak Daily Mirror Article from Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Volunteers prepare
for a whale of a task

By DREW HERMAN
Mirror Writer

After more than four years out of sight, a gray whale carcass will emerge from its hole in Pasagshak on the way to eventual public display as an articulated skeleton in a new Kodiak Wildlife Refuge Visitors Center.

"We Dig Whales" gets under way Aug. 13 with a weeklong excavation, unearthing remains buried in June 2000 to allow the flesh to decay.
"'The end product should be something the community is really proud of," project coordinator Stacey Studebaker said.

Organizers met July 20 to plan procedures at the 40-foot trench. This activity writes a new chapter in a story that began when Studebaker and her husband Mike Sirofchuck saw the dead whale drifting at sea while they were out kayaking.

When the whale beached on state land, Studebaker saw an opportunity to gel a unique bit of natural history and organized the burial with volunteer help.

"At that time I had no idea where we were going to put the skeleton," she said.
The answer to that conundrum came during conversations with Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge manager Leslie Kerr last December. Kerr thought of making the whale skeleton a main attraction in a new visitors center planned for the refuge.

"It just seemed like a neat opportunity." Kerr said. "What else do you do with a 35-foot whale skeleton?"

Earlier this year a test pit dug to check the state of decomposition showed the whale is ready for the next stage of its journey.

"We hit bare bones," Studebaker said.

The team of volunteers includes community members, wildlife enthusiasts and even an artist-in-residence, Bruce Nelson, who will document the project in paint.

After the bones are unearthed they will go to the National Marine Fishery Service facility at Ciibson Cove for cleaning and storage. There the long procedure of preparing them for display begins.
Because of the formidable size of the animal, Studebaker compared the process to putting together a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Whale skeleton expert Lee Post of Homer is expected to take the lead for that part of the project.

"My background for working with whale skeletons is I was a bicycle mechanic," he said.

But that was 25 years and whole pods of skeletons ago. Today Post is one of the most experienced practitioners of an arcane art. His projects include a 41-foot sperm whale on display in Homer High School, an orca in Cordova, and other displays in Homer, Anchorage and Kodiak.

When Post started working with whale skeletons, he discovered that most of the ones already on display in museums had been prepared as much as 100 years ago. by "people who were long gone and left no notes."

Post contacted the handful of other practitioners, studied examples along the West Coast and more recently in Nantucket, Mass. They are just now coming up with a manual about how to preserve the giant mammal bones, which requires a unique approach. To articulate the hard, fossilized bones of a dinosaur skeleton, conservators usually use exterior ligatures and welded frameworks.

"But that's a different technique than whale skeletons," Post said. "We're not doing a lot of welding."

Epoxy glue and steel rods will be more the order for the gray whale. With whale bones, regular woodworking tools suffice to bore holes for internal connectors.
"For as big and massive as they are they're amazingly soft," Post said.

That part of the project probably lies about a year in the future, after one more important step before rearticulation can begin. Even with the flesh gone, it will take that long for the natural oil within the bones to come out. Post said burying them in horse manure is the latest, best technique for hurrying that along.

"It should be an interesting process," he said.

"We Dig Whales" may have room for a few more volunteers who can commit at least two full days of work, and not mind a powerful smell.