A stranded blue whale in the north of Iceland- Photos
Not all our news are good, some times we have to speak about some sad events. Two weeks ago a dead blue whale appeared close to the shore in the north of Iceland, and the sea left it stranded on the beach in Skagafjordur.
The blue whale was already dead when it arrived to the beach, so it might have had an accident, but nobody knows exactly what happened. It was an adult individual, according to its size, but probably it is not fully grown, beacuse it is just about 23 or 25m long, when a fully grown blue whale can be up to 30m long. It was complete when arrived to the beach close to Skagatá, but now the work to clean the bones is already started, so we can see the whale in pieces as the pictures below show.
It‘s important to mention what is going to happen to the blue whale now. The Húsavík Whale Museum and the Natural History Museum of Reykjavik applied for it, both of them want to have it in their own exhibition, a complete life-size skeleton of a blue whale is something to be seen, and really difficult to obtain, so it‘s a great opportunity, even with the really difficult work included, what means the transport, the cleaning of the bones and the reconstruction of the skeleton.
When you arrive near a stranded whale the first thing you can feel is the awful strong smell, but after that, you appreciate how big these animals are, and the beauty that you see when they are alive becomes just in bones and decomposed flesh when they die. It‘s really sad to think about why this whale died, because it was not fully grown, so what kind of accident happened?
Teresa, deckhand
Photos: Teresa Losada
