A drift whale is a
cetacean mammal that has died at sea and floated into shore. This is in contrast to a
beached or stranded whale, which reaches land alive and may die there or regain safety in the ocean. Most
cetacea
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel th ...
ns that die, from natural causes or predators, do not wind up on land; most die far offshore and sink deep to become novel ecological zones known as
whale fall
A whale fall occurs when the carcass of a whale has fallen onto the ocean floor at a depth greater than , in the bathyal or abyssal zones. On the sea floor, these carcasses can create complex localized ecosystems that supply sustenance to deep- ...
s. Some species that wash ashore are scientifically dolphins, i.e. members of the family
Delphinidae
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the ...
, but for ease of use, this article treats them all as "drift whales". For example, one species notorious for mass strandings is the
pilot whale
Pilot whales are cetaceans belonging to the genus ''Globicephala''. The two extant species are the long-finned pilot whale (''G. melas'') and the short-finned pilot whale (''G. macrorhynchus''). The two are not readily distinguishable at sea, ...
, also known as "blackfish", which is taxonomically a dolphin.
In historical sources, it is not always clear whether a given cetacean washed up alive or dead, but the term "drift whale" focuses on the benefits of its carcass – meat, blubber, fat, and other products – to the people who claimed it.
Nowadays, when a dead whale washes up on a beach, often the authorities are required to dispose of it as a potential hazard to human health, so the resource implications go the other way: a drift whale is no longer a benefit to a community, but an expensive disadvantage.
Overview
Species
Many cetacean species have been documented as drift whales, but some are more common than others. In New England, for example, the carcasses of
fin,
humpback,
sperm
Sperm is the male reproductive cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm with a tail known as a flagellum, ...
,
right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical ...
, and
pilot whale
Pilot whales are cetaceans belonging to the genus ''Globicephala''. The two extant species are the long-finned pilot whale (''G. melas'') and the short-finned pilot whale (''G. macrorhynchus''). The two are not readily distinguishable at sea, ...
s, as well as dolphins, are most likely to drift ashore. Some species have a naturally high buoyancy, and float when they are dead, aided by the gases of putrefaction.
Whales that live in the
pelagic ocean, far from the
continental shelf
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
, are less likely to wash up ashore than coastal species. Once these deep-sea animals do find themselves in shallower waters, however, they may run into difficulties, as the gradual shelving of the shoreline is thought to play a role in confusing
their sense of echolocation.
Sperm whale strandings are known to have occurred in the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...
for centuries, and the incidents may be increasing with louder
ship noise.
Reasons
Aside from the
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industr ...
industry, most cetaceans have no predators other than the
orca
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...
(killer whale) and certain large sharks (such as the
dusky), which in both cases tend to attack in groups and focus on one young whale. Some drift whale carcasses show injuries consistent with attacks from these species, or, in modern times, with
ship strikes (''e.g.'', trauma from a propeller). Another obvious and visible cause of traumatic death is
cetacean bycatch
Cetacean bycatch (or cetacean by-catch) is the incidental capture of non-target cetacean species such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales by fisheries.Alverson et al. (1994) Bycatch can be caused by entanglement in fishing nets and lines, or di ...
, ''i.e.'', entanglement with fishing gear, which kills tens of thousands each year, according to the
International Whaling Commission
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation ...
.
Other carcasses show no visible injury, and theories about why the animals died include the possibilities discussed for
live strandings (especially
active sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or ...
) as well as illness and malnutrition. Sometimes a necroscopy is performed, which can reveal the cause of death, such as ingestion of
plastic pollution
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are cate ...
and other
Marine debris
Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a sea or ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing ...
.
Locations
Certain beaches are well known as likely spots for whales, and other gifts from the sea, to wash up:
drift seed
__NOTOC__
Drift seeds (also sea beans) and drift fruits are seeds and fruits adapted for long-distance dispersal by water. Most are produced by tropical trees, and they can be found on distant beaches after drifting thousands of miles through oce ...
s,
driftwood
__NOTOC__
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves.
In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and fo ...
, and latterly
sea glass and even
messages in bottles. Modern recreational beachcombers use knowledge of how storms, geography, ocean currents, and seasonal events determine the arrival and exposure of rare finds; the same applies to those looking out for drift whales.
Eponymous coastal features include Drift Whale Bay within
Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park
''Parts of this article have been adapted from thBC Parks website''
Mquqʷin/Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park is a provincial park located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
History
As a result of land-use plan ...
on the Pacific Coast of
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
.
Saint-Clément-des-Baleines
Saint-Clément-des-Baleines () is a commune on Île de Ré, a coastal island in the French department of Charente-Maritime, located in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (formerly Poitou-Charentes).
Population
Geography
This commune has no harb ...
on the Atlantic coast of France is named after its stranding beach.
Scavenging versus hunting
People have been using drift whales for millennia, long before the beginning of active
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industr ...
. However, in relying on the archaeological record, the distinction between first scavenging and then hunting is not clear-cut.
Whales as windfall
A whale's massive carcass would provide a coastal community with considerable amounts of meat and fat, without the danger and effort of venturing onto the open ocean to harpoon a living leviathan.
An additional resource, in the treeless Arctic, was the long bones, useful for construction. An even more specialised benefit is the occasional presence of
ambergris
Ambergris ( or , la, ambra grisea, fro, ambre gris), ''ambergrease'', or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a mari ...
in the guts of sperm whales; in 2021 a group of Yemeni fishermen sold their find for $1.5 million.
Blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians.
Description
Lipid-rich, collagen fiber-laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except fo ...
used to be processed into
whale oil
Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' (" tear" or "drop").
Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the head ...
.
[ More generally, ]whale meat
Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans ( whales, dolphins, porpoises) and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs ( offal), skin ( muktuk), and fat ( blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compare ...
is still valued in some countries; muktuk (skin and blubber) is eaten uncooked as a delicacy in the Arctic, as fat is especially welcome in very cold climates.
The bounty and good fortune inherent in this find are recognised in etymology: "The meaning of the word 'drift-whale' in Icelandic, 'hvalreki,' has the same meaning as 'wind-fall' – an unexpected good incurred at no cost", according to Sigrún Davíðsdóttir, London correspondent of the Icelandic national broadcaster RÚV
Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV) (pronounced or ) ( en, 'The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service') is Iceland's national public-service broadcasting organization.
Operating from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional ce ...
. Two anthropologists, Thomas Talbot Waterman and Alfred Louis Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American Cultural anthropology, cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. ...
, who worked with Yurok informants in California, classified drift whales as a gathered resource, rather than a product of hunting, as those beneficiaries ran no risk.
Pre-contact aboriginal
Coastal people around the world came up with a technique called dolphin drive hunting
Dolphin drive hunting, also called dolphin drive fishing, is a method of hunting dolphins and occasionally other small cetaceans by driving them together with boats and then usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing ...
, which exploits the animals' tendency to beach themselves. This sort of hunt, which depends on substantial community co-operation, still continues in a few places, as far apart as the North Atlantic (Whaling in the Faroe Islands
Whaling in the Faroe Islands, or (from the Faroese terms , meaning pilot whale, and , meaning killing), is a type of drive hunting that involves herding various species of whales and dolphins, but primarily pilot whales, into shallow b ...
), the South Pacific (Malaita dolphin drive hunt
Dolphin are hunted in Malaita in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, mainly for their meat and teeth, and also sometimes for live capture for dolphinariums. Dolphin drive hunting is practised by coastal communities around the world; the a ...
), and Japan (Taiji dolphin drive hunt
The Taiji dolphin drive hunt is based on driving dolphins and other small cetaceans into a small bay where they can be killed or captured for their meat and for sale to dolphinariums. The new primary killing method is done by cutting the spinal ...
).
It is harder to find evidence, archaeological or ethnographic, of North American indigenous people hunting large whales before cultural contact with Europeans, according to scholars of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
From scavenging to hunting
The skills learned from processing drift whales, such as flensing
Flensing is the removing of the blubber or outer integument of whales, separating it from the animal's meat. Processing the blubber (the subcutaneous fat) into whale oil was the key step that transformed a whale carcass into a stable, transp ...
(stripping the blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians.
Description
Lipid-rich, collagen fiber-laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except fo ...
), may have led to seeking out live ones. For example, the Makah
The Makah (; Klallam: ''màq̓áʔa'')Renker, Ann M., and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of '' Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Instit ...
of Washington State have been hunting gray whale
The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and bre ...
s for at least 1500 years, but were harvesting stranded whales for many centuries before that. On the other side of North America, drift whale scavenging on the Outer Banks
The Outer Banks (frequently abbreviated OBX) are a string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating ...
of North Carolina led to organised hunts, documented at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum
The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is a maritime museum that focuses on the maritime history and shipwrecks of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The museum is located in Hatteras Village, the southernmost community on Hatteras Island, North ...
.
When the early settlers arrived in New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, they saw from the deck of the ''Mayflower
''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, ...
'' a huge number of whales, far more than they were accustomed to see in European waters, according to American historian W. Jeffrey Bolster.
March 1644, in Southampton, Long Island, saw the first recorded attempt of the New England colonists "to organize community efforts to hunt drift whales.” The Native Americans had developed the technique of herding pilot whales onto the shelving beaches for slaughter; the colonists observed this, practised flensing the carcasses and rendering the blubber, improved on their weapons and boats, and then progressed to hunting on the ocean. This early drift whaling at Southampton led gradually to the nearby Sag Harbor
Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...
whaling fleet becoming the biggest in New York State, according to a curator at the local whaling museum.
Tribes in Nantucket guarded and traded as sachem their ownership of drift whales assiduously. They were able to use their ownership and early treaties as a way to avoid royal taxes on the products.
Both scavenging and hunting
Some communities both hunted and scavenged. William Barr
William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th United States attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Born and raised in New York City, Barr ...
, the Arctic historian, gives two examples of the late eighteenth century: the Moravian missions on Labrador, and possibly the Inuit of Hudson Strait
Hudson Strait (french: Détroit d'Hudson) links the Atlantic Ocean and Labrador Sea to Hudson Bay in Canada. This strait lies between Baffin Island and Nunavik, with its eastern entrance marked by Cape Chidley in Newfoundland and Labrador and ...
, who had a trading relationship with the supply ships of the Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...
. However, Barr assumes that the drift whales were ones that the Inuit hunters (or possibly the European whaling ships) had harpooned and wounded, and the carcasses had come ashore some time later.
Risks
Wrapped in a thick blanket of blubber, the carcass retains its mammalian heat, and the process of decomposition takes place relatively quickly; once ashore, there is a risk of the swollen whale exploding. That is a rare event, but more commonly, the build-up of pressure inside the abdominal cavity can lead to the extrusion of the whale's penis through the genital slit. A similar phenomenon, postmortem fetal extrusion, can occur to the carcass of a pregnant whale: Tim Flannery
Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, conservationist, explorer, author, science communicator, activist and public scientist. He was awarded Australian of the Yea ...
wrote that "A rotting whale could fill with gas to bursting, ejecting a fetus the size of a motor vehicle with sufficient force to kill a man."
Consumption of drift whale carcasses, particularly if they have been dead for a long time, carries risks of food poisoning
Foodborne illness (also foodborne disease and food poisoning) is any illness resulting from the spoilage of contaminated food by pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or parasites that contaminate food,
as well as prions (the agents of mad cow disea ...
or worse. In 2002, fourteen residents of a Bering Sea
The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Am ...
fishing village ate '' muktuk'' (skin and blubber) from a beluga whale
The beluga whale () (''Delphinapterus leucas'') is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus ''Delphinapterus''. It is also known as the ...
which they "estimated had been dead for at least several weeks", resulting in eight of them developing botulism
Botulism is a rare and potentially fatal illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium ''Clostridium botulinum''. The disease begins with weakness, blurred vision, feeling tired, and trouble speaking. This may then be followed by weakne ...
, with two of the affected requiring mechanical ventilation
Mechanical ventilation, assisted ventilation or intermittent mandatory ventilation (IMV), is the medical term for using a machine called a ventilator to fully or partially provide artificial ventilation. Mechanical ventilation helps move a ...
. The Centers for Disease Control
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
recommended boiling Alaska Native dishes to rid them of the botulism toxin.
Mythology and ritual
Drift whales are a feature of fables and mythology. For example, William of Barkley Sound
, image = Fishing boat in the Broken Group Islands.jpg
, image_size = 260px
, alt =
, caption = Barkley Sound
, image_bathymetry =
, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, locat ...
on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
recounted tales to Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Sap ...
, which were re-told by Kathryn Anne Bridge in a compendium about the Huu-ay-aht First Nations.
The chiefs of certain West Coast peoples built private sacred places, called whalers' washing houses, where they could ritually purify themselves. The spiritual preparation that they undertook was not only for skill in the chase of living whales, but also to attract drift whales to their beach. The good fortune of the chief was understood to be tied to the spirit world, and the remains of human ancestors - especially the skulls - were used to ask for "whaling magic". The best known of these is the Yuquot Whalers Shrine, associated with the great Mowachaht
The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations are a First Nations government on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations are a member nation of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Counci ...
chief Maquinna
Maquinna (also transliterated Muquinna, Macuina, Maquilla) was the chief of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, during the heyday of the maritime fur trade in the 1780s and 1790s on the Pacific Northwest Coast. The name means "possessor of ...
.
The neighbouring Nuu-chah-nulth
The Nuu-chah-nulth (; Nuučaan̓uł: ), also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifte ...
and Makah
The Makah (; Klallam: ''màq̓áʔa'')Renker, Ann M., and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of '' Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Instit ...
peoples used similar shrines to pull drift whales to them.
Food resource
proposed that drift whales might have formed a considerable summer food resource for people living on the coast of what is now Oregon, before contact with Europeans.
Rights
Peoples that value whale meat
Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans ( whales, dolphins, porpoises) and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs ( offal), skin ( muktuk), and fat ( blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compare ...
and blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians.
Description
Lipid-rich, collagen fiber-laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except fo ...
have kept an eye out for drift whales, and traded the rights to them, for example bartering access to inland fishing rivers. Specific people may have hereditary rights to drift whales and a particular locale.
See also
* Globster
References
{{Aquatic ecosystem topics, expanded=marine
Animal death
Aquatic ecology
Whales
Foraging