| Thursday,
25. July 2002 |
Oamaru, New Zealand |
Nothing new about our penguin project.
It's still 'sit-and-wait' until DoC decides whether our permit is
issued or not. That doesn't mean that nothing's happening at the moment.
In fact, during the last two days happened quite a bit. I was in Dunedin
yesterday when my cellphone started ringing. It was Jennie from the
Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony.
"Hi, Thomas. We’re looking
for Dave. Do you know where he is?"
"No idea, why?"
"Well, there's a bloody big elephant seal at Oamaru harbour."
"A what???"
"A bloody big elephant seal…
it is'really big."
"Jeez… just when I’m
not there…"
"Don't worry", Jen replied. "It's
dead."
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She told me that a DoC team was to come up from
Dunedin, to examine the seal before its carcass would be buried.
After a while it became clear, that this would not happen before
the next day (i.e. today). That was my chance. So, first thing
this morning was - armed with my camera - to take a closer look
at that monster of an elephant seal. It did not anticipate what
I would eventually slip into…
When I got down to the harbour, the seal was concealed
by a fresh mount of earth. Yesterday, a bulldozer dragged the
3 ton colossus to a less frequented area of Oamaru's quarry adjacent
to the Penguin Colony. At first I was impressed by the sheer size
of this animal. Then I noticed its head and was dismayed. The
huge head was covered in dried-up blood; from numerous old battle
scars poured blood, ran down his wrinkly skin and dripped into
a huge dark red puddle on the muddy ground. But worst of all were
its eyes, which swelled out of their sockets like blood filled
balloons. Now and then, I heard silent farting sounds… there
definitely were some unpleasant fermentation processes going on
in the giants bowels!
DoC's Kevin Pearce came up from the Penguin Colony.
"Gonna get the dimensions of this fella", he said and
pulled out a measuring tape. Together we determined the elephant
seal's length: 4.7 meters. Kevin filled the data into a DoC template.
"How the hell are we supposed to measure its 'Girth at armpits'",
Kevin muttered. And indeed it appeared to be a bit problematic
for the two of us to lift the 3 ton monster to poke the measuring
tape underneath it. We had a good guesstimate: roundabout 4.1
meters. Jeez, what dimensions…
"Hey Thomas", I heard Kev calling from somewhere on
the other side of this mount of blubber and guts. "Could
you give me a hand here?"
"Sure."
"I try to lift this side of his tails while you see if you
can find his anus, will you?" And after a short break he
added: "And when you’ve found it, just poke your finger
in, so that I know from where I have to measure the 'Length from
snout to anus', okay?"
in your dreams, Kev…
All over the huge body I found little ballanids
(small crustaceans) that had attached themselves to the elephant
seal's fur. Most of them were still alive… but their fate
was… well… sealed with their host's death.
"Hey, Kev, what do you think, what's the cause of death."
"Hmm. Hard to say", Kevin'replied. "There's no
obvious external wound and looking at the amount of blood pouring
out of him I'd say he's got some serious internal wounds. Maybe
he hit something. There'll be two of our vets coming from Dunedin
later on to do a dissection. Then we'll find out. But one thing
for sure… the fella has been at sea for quite a while looking
at all those barnacles he's carrying around with him."
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A few hours later
the experts from Dunedin arrived. I just dropped by to have a quick
look to see what was happening. But Dave, who had joined Kev earlier,
called me over. If I could film the dissection and take pictures
of it with my digital camera. Err, okay… So I ended up witnessing
3 hours of butchery on that Ex-elephant seal, producing the first
(and only) splatter movie of my career. It was hair rising at times!
During my undergraduate studies I had to dissect a couple of animals
myself. But the biggest mammal I ever had underneath my scalpel
was a rat. What I saw here, was an entirely different story. Those
guys didn't even use scalpels (which of course are not of much help
when dissecting something of this size). Instead, they wielded their
numerous butcher knifes, grabbed their whaler's hooks and off they
went. After the seal's blubber had been flensed off one half of
its belly, the delicate bits followed. As soon as the subcutaneous
tissue was opened, bucket loads of black blood gushed out of the
abdominal cavity. That confirmed Kevin's first suspicion of strong
internal bleeding. It seemed as if there were some nasty bruises
in the seal's skull region. Therefore, it seems likely that the
elephant seal had a nasty collision with something even bigger than
him, probably a ship (which must have been one hell of a boat) and
eventually bled to death.
Not a nice way to go. Well, at least the seal did not have to attend
his own dissection (alive, of course), which wasn't nice either.
The pong - which hadn't been too appealing before the animal was
opened - was mind numbing. If anyone has visited Rotorua and multiplies
the foul vulcanic stench there by 100, will have an idea what it
smelled like. And, unlike with splatter movies on TV which can be
turned off, I had to keep the camera rolling throughout the carnage…
Well… in Germany we have a saying… 'Shared pain is
half the pain'… whoever feels tough enough should follow the
link below to see a bloody summary of the seal's dissection. |
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[
Click here for a detailed and bloody documentation of the elephant
seal's dissection ]
(Beware: not for the faint hearted!!!) |
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