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Easy to watch this whale: Seacoast Science Center displays humpback bones
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The skeleton of Tofu, a 2-year-old humpback whale
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She was 2 years old and weighed 800 pounds. Born in the warm waters of the Caribbean, she died in a Boston shipping lane. Now her bleached skeleton is the centerpiece of an exhibit designed to teach about the lives of humpback whales in the North Atlantic.
The new exhibit was unveiled at the Seacoast Science Center, in Rye, New Hampshire, on Thursday, June 18. Interpretive stations, with sound and video, teach about humpback whale communication, feeding and play behaviors, and whale anatomy. Ocean migration paths are traced. Above it all, graceful whale bones soar.
Tofu was just a youngster, but all 32 feet of her impress. She was named for her almost all-white fluke. Unique tail patterns are one way humpbacks are identified. She was known to Gulf of Maine cetologists and had been sighted from whale watch boats. Twice she made the long trip north with her mother from the Caribbean to summer feeding grounds at Jeffrey's Ledge and Stellwagen Bank, off the coast of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
She was found dead near Cape Cod in June of 2007. Experts believe she was struck by a boat. Tofu died just one week before the shipping lanes were moved to avoid whale strikes. It's a sad story, but one that staff at the science center hopes will educate and inspire.
It took nearly a year and half to clean and prepare her bones for display. The carcass was left to decompose under a tarp at a Massachusetts Division of Fish and Game site for several months. The whale bones, which contain oil, were degreased. All 148 bones - including the 175-pound jawbone - were then assembled and lofted high.
The mission of the Seacoast Science Center is to teach visitors and area students ocean literacy as well as the history, geology and marine biology of New Hampshire's coastal region. The Gulf of Maine exhibit hall features saltwater tanks full of native sea creatures swimming around or anchored to rocks. At the touch pool, scoop and hold an anemone, tiny shelled creature, or starfish. Outdoors, miles of trails meander through a 135-acre seaside park.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, from April through October. Winter hours are Saturday through Monday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults and teens, $2 for ages 3-12.
"Tofu: The Journey of a Humpback Whale" is the largest whale exhibit north of Boston. There are around 80,000 humpback whales in oceans around the world, but once they were hunted nearly to extinction. Their Latin name, Megaptera novaeangliae, means "giant-winged New Englander." Large front flippers are their wings.
Images and movies of humpback whales
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