Whale Bones Trawled Up From Bottom of Baltic Sea

Posted by Martin R on March 11, 2010
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I’ve written before about a recent whale vertebra that someone had dropped into a lake far from the sea in northern Sweden. This past summer, fishermen trawling off the country’s southern coast caught two old whale bones, and they’ve turned out to belong to a grey whale, a species that’s been extinct in the Atlantic since the 17th century. An unidentified whale beached itself and died in the area in 1709. Radiocarbon will tell if the newly found bones are likely to belong to that animal.

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  1. #1 doug l
    March 11, 2010

    Interesting reminder of what we had just a short time ago. I understand there are plans to re-introduce grey whales into the North Atlantic. It would be, I think, a fine experiment in habitat restoration and ocean resource management. At the risk of sounding sentimental; I think we kinda owe it to the grey whales.

  2. #2 Martin R
    March 12, 2010

    Wow, I wonder how you tow a breeding population of greys into the Atlantic! Through the Panama Canal? And you couldn’t just take pups because then you’d lose the species’ culture.