Point Reyes Light - August 19, 1999
Well-travelled whale comes to dead stop at lighthouse
A gray whale has ended a strange, two-week migration around the Bay Area at the tip of Point Reyes - a journey all the more strange because she was dead the whole time.
Now decaying upon rocks near the Point Reyes Lighthouse, the carcass of the 40-foot female gray was first spotted on Crown Beach in Alameda by a traffic helicopter hovering over the morning rush hour.
The dead whale attracted hundreds of curiosity seekers, scores of newspaper and television reporters, and caused quite a headache for the East Bay Regional Park District officials who manage the public beach.
"It was quite a concern out here in Alameda," said Steven Bobzien, an analyst with the East Bay park district, who helped manage the crowds and get rid of the carcass. "It's the stinkiest thing you'll ever deal with."
Crowds were eager to get a look at the giant corpse, which is protected under the federal Marine Mammal Act. While the park arranged to dispose of it, Bobzien said he obliged people's curiosity by offering scientific facts about the leviathan.
"It's real spiritual for the people," he said. "The curiosity for some people is overwhelming."
But whenever a dead marine mammal washes ashore, a strict protocol must be followed. If it is found between Año Nuevo and Bodega Bay, either the California Academy of Sciences or UC Berkeley has dibs on it for scientific or educational purposes.
Because this whale washed ashore in the East Bay, claiming rights went to UC Berkeley, which respectfully declined. So, with a body rotting on Crown Beach, and some bathers and some pretty expensive real estate nearby, officials with the East Bay park district went about removing the problem. "A pretty costly venture for us, in fact," Bobzien said.
There are only two ways to get rid of a dead whale: bury it or haul it so far out to sea that it won't impede navigation or float back ashore. In consultation with UC Berkeley, the East Bay park officials chose the latter, sort of.
A commercial boat was hired to pull the whale off the public beach and take it to Miller Knox Regional Park near Point Richmond, where it spent the night lashed to a pier, Bobzien said.
The next day, a 51-foot ocean-going vessel from Petaluma, the M.V. Saxon, hauled the approximately 40-ton whale beyond the Golden Gate and directly to Point Reyes, where it was cut loose and apparently left in the surf in the vicinity of South Beach.
"It was going to be left there to decay," explained John Dell'Osso, the park's chief of interpretation.
But instead of washing ashore, where it might have been claimed for educational purposes by school groups, it lolled in the surf where it was picked at by sharks, Dell'Osso said. In fact, researchers from the Farallon Islands filmed the sharks feeding.
Finally, the tattered remains landed on the rocks not far from the Point Reyes headlands. Many of the internal organs had been devoured, and the skeleton was no longer intact. One collector for the California Academy of Sciences, Ray Bandar, was able to get just a few vertebrae and some ribs last weekend.
Bobzien estimated that the East Bay Regional Park District paid close to $12,000 - not including staff time - to haul the whale to Point Reyes.
The whale, which was approximately 25 years old, was the ninth to wash ashore in San Francisco Bay this year, Bobzien said.