It wasnвЂ™t easy to find all the openings: whale heart anatomy is very different from ours. There's a toilet plunger in one of them,вЂќ Jacqueline Miller, a ROM mammalogy technician, told me at the time. They plugged the heartвЂ™s valves with вЂњbuckets, bottles, whatever fits.

large mammal veterinarians, worked quickly to prepare the organ before it started to rot. After the heart was slowly defrosted over the course of five days, the team, including two U.S. The whaleвЂ™s heart is almost the size of a smart car, and the ROM decided to plastinate it for the exhibit. ROM staff have also had greater success recovering high-quality DNA from this whale. The organs of that whale were much better preserved, maybe because it had been submerged in frigid water for longer. (The aerobic process would also require lots of oxygen and create lots of heat, so staff cut vents in the shipping containers.)ДЄ year after the recovery in Newfoundland, a team of scientists and technicians met in Trenton and began to thaw a 180 kilogram organ: the Rocky Harbour whaleвЂ™s heart. Bacteria in the manure would devour much of the organic matter remaining on the bones, saving humans the work. It took 385 of Prince Edward CountyвЂ™s finest dairy cows to produce enough manure for the task: eight triaxle dump truck loads. The Canadian blue whales seem to be struggling to procreate. But across the sea, in the population of blue whales that frequents the eastern Atlantic from Iceland to the Azores, researchers have catalogued 22 calves in 19 years while spending far fewer observing hours each season. In that time, they have spotted 23 calves. The Mingan Island Cetacean Study has been documenting blue whales in the Gulf of St. The population that frequents the Canadian waters of the western North Atlantic appears to be distressed. But while blue whales can be found in all oceans but the Arctic, smaller populations cluster together in different parts of the sea, even communicating with a distinctive vocabulary of acoustic calls.

After being decimated by commercial whaling, the species is listed as endangered globally. вЂњThis stranding event represented the removal of perhaps 4 per cent of mature individuals from this endangered population,вЂќ Lawson explains. The death of nine animals is a staggering loss for the blue whales of the region.

Blue whale length