Background On the remote northwestern coast of PEI in 1987, a 26 m long mature female blue whale died and washed ashore near the town of
Tignish (see map). In hopes of preserving the whale's skeleton for research or museum display, the PEI government and the Canadian Museum
of Nature arranged for the skeleton to be dragged off the beach near Nail Pond, and buried. The remains of the whale were longer than two
Vancouver trolley buses parked one behind the other, and weighed an estimated 80,000 kg. Her burial was a mammoth task (see video).
Because of the difficulty of unearthing and displaying such a large animal, the whale skeleton remained under the red PEI dirt
for two decades. In 2007, the Museum of Nature and the PEI government granted UBC permission to retrieve the whale, and bring it to BC to
be displayed in the new Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
Moving the skeleton from the coast of PEI to the
inside of the Museum's glass atrium, 6000 km away, will be a
challenging project. The recovery team and the Museum staff are
looking forward to meeting this challenge, and to seeing PEI's blue
whale suspended in her new home on Canada's other coast. Keep track of progress updates on our expedition page.
Blue whales are the largest animal ever to have lived on earth. They rarely strand on beaches, and very few skeletons have been
recovered for research or display. Worldwide, only 20 are available to the public for viewing. The skeleton in the Beaty Museum's
atrium will be the first of its kind in Canada. A high resolution version of the architectural rendering shown above is available for download (16.6MB JPEG).
