Phase III - Full Excavation
of the Skeleton

Stacy coordinated the project and enlisted a planning team that resulted in the exhumation of the skeleton that took place on Aug. 16-18th 2004. More than 100 people have been involved in this project from the first day the whale rolled onto the beach to the present day. It has been a phenomenal and fun experience working with so many incredible people and a real mystery that so many folks are attracted to such a project (almost like flies). I guess they recognize it as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity which overrode the smell and all other obstacles. State and Federal agencies that normally don't have the opportunity to collaborate worked cooperatively to help make the project happen.

Two planning meetings were held and the dates for the full excavation of the skeleton were set for later in the summer, starting August 15th. The team decided to name this part of the project, "We Dig Whales". A local wildlife artist, Bruce Nelson, designed t-shirts for all the volunteers and people connected with the project.

Publicity in the local newspaper, The Kodiak Daily Mirror, the local public radio station, KMXT, and the U.S. Coast Guard communications office, called for interested volunteers. Two volunteer orientation sessions were held at the Kodiak College to give the background of the project, some Gray Whale biology and logistics of the dig. Volunteers signed up for the days they could work. A simulation of the proposed excavation in a small sand box with a model whale gave the volunteers a little better idea of what they were getting into (minus the smell) before they signed up.

"We Dig Whales" took place on Pasagshak Beach located 44 miles from the city of Kodiak by road. It went so smoothly that the job was completed in only 3 days! The sunny, hot (upper 70's) weather provided by Mother Nature made for ideal working conditions and kept everyone happy, especially the flies! The volunteers were well prepared, meticulous, enthusiastic and came from all facets of the Kodiak community. We couldn't have had a better bunch!

Friday, August 13th, volunteers and Fish and Wildlife staff arrived at the excavation site to set up the Weatherport tent, the port-a-potty, and deliver shovels, rakes, hand tools and other necessary items we had rounded up for the whale dig.

Sunday, August 15th, Leslie Kerr led a group of people in a beautiful Blessing Ceremony on the beach near the whale burial site. With the dramatic backdrop of the spectacular Pasagshak Bay drenched by bright sunlight, we honored the whale, the ocean, the project, and asked the Great Spirit and Mother Earth for a successful, safe, happy, and respectful intent for all involved with the upcoming days.

The first day, Monday, August 16th, Mike Anderson and his Hitachi-EX300 track hoe did most of the work, digging a wide terraced pit around the buried whale that was about 10 feet underground. Gradually sloping earth ramps were added at each end of the pit to allow volunteers easy access to the skeleton. Our volunteer excavator, contractor Mike Anderson, was an artist at this with his masterful command of the gigantic machinery, scraping carefully inch-by-inch down to the skeleton so as not to injure any bones. A small crew continued the soil removal that day with shovels and got right down to the bones, which were mostly bare except for the ones wrapped in landscaping fabric.

The bones had very little tissue but the remains of the whale were oozing putrid oily liquid that pooled around the skeleton in various places. Some bones were almost totally clean. Because of bears in the area, we surrounded the pit with an electric fence at night. The exposed bones were covered with landscaping fabric because of the tempting sight and smells for curious foxes and hungry eagles.

Tuesday morning August 17th, the first big crew of community volunteers arrived and we outfitted them in disposable white Tyvek suits over their old clothing and supplied snappy turquoise rubber work gloves. After sealing their cuffs with duct tape they headed to the pit. The volunteers were assigned to various parts of the skeleton to remove remaining soil from the bones with small trowels and large metal spoons. They were challenged to take the utmost care not to scratch the bones.

Our first objective was to search out and find the very important small bones that are sometimes lost in other projects of this sort. We found 12 chevrons (3 in sets of 2), 2 pelvic bones, 2 ear bones, 3 hyoid bones, and 1 sternum. Since the flippers were wrapped in landscaping fabric, all the bones were
accounted for. In fact, there were 29 bones in each flipper (not including the humerus). We began tagging the bones with durable, white Tyvek tags secured with wires on Tuesday afternoon, carefully labeling the various sections of the spine in numerical sequence. The first truckload of bones headed to town that evening. The bones were placed in metal mesh crates (old king crab cookers supplied by Alaska Pacific Seafoods) and grass sod was used as natural padding between the bones to cushion them for their ride back to town on the rough, unpaved road.

Wednesday August 18th, a new volunteer crew continued to carefully clean the sand off the remaining bones, count and label them and load them up on the trucks. We discovered 7 cervical vertebrae (all unfused), 14 thoracic vertebrae and 14 ribs on each side. Continuing down the spine, we identified 11 lumbar vertebrae and 24 caudal vetebrae.

After the mandibles were removed, we cleaned the skull as well as possible, wrapped it up in fabric and 8 volunteers lifted it into a plywood box for transport. The baleen had almost completely decomposed. The brain had turned to a gooey gray pudding.

At the very end of the day, Mike Anderson arrived again with the Hitachi-EX300 and lifted the last bone, the skull, in its box onto a flatbed truck. As the sun set in the west, Mike covered up the pit while the rest of the crew celebrated for many hours on the beach.