So I’m reading and hearing about this poor whale that is all tangled up in, I believe, fishing line? And scientists are trying to tranquilize and help it get free.
And it got me to thinking about Big, Giant Whales and what happens when, say, a BLUE WHALE (94 ft. long, a bazillion pounds) dies? Do they sink to the bottom of the ocean to decay or do they float on the surface, a giant, rotting carcass?
Li’l dead fish you see every day, but come on, running into a dead “Largest Mammal Ever” would have to be a depressing, horrible sight, eh?
I believe they float at the surface, and I’m pretty certain they won’t get the chance to rot. More than likely, they become food for marine scavengers (e.g., sharks).
Jarbabyj,
What happens to whales when they die?? Good question. I live in the Northeast USA, and during College I worked for a large Aquarium up here and we would go on many “strandings” a year. We would investigate many dead drifting whales. When a large animal dies, either from old age or getting tangled in fishing line [boycott drift netting, it’s VERY BAD ] they tend to float. When the carcass startes to decay gass builds up in the body cavity and the animal floats. After a prolonged ‘drift’ the gas dissipates and the carcass sinks to the bottom. Most of the time different fish will feed off the carcass and it sink pretty quick, (a week or two) It is illegal for a civillian to touch a carcass of a whale. If one is spotted it must be radioed in to the coast guard. As a matter of fact all whales, dolphins and seals and seal lions are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1973, this is only valid in certain countries like US, Canada, and parts of Europe, and it excludes eskimos and inuits, (sp?).
Also back to the main question, when the Whale is dead and floating usually sharks will start the smorgasbord. Unfortunately, trophy fisherman will wait until really big sharks come around then they will entice the shark that is feeding off the whale to bite their re-inforced steel lines and then pull them in. This too is illegal and to me no sport at all. As a matter of fact one of the largest Great White sharks ever caught on a rod and reel was caught off of Montauk Point which is the eastern most point of Long Island, and that huge cartilaginous fish was feeding off a dead sperm whale. From what I hear before it was caught it was tearing 55gallon chunks of flesh off the whale. It was a huge 22 foot long shark. ( Jaws was 25ft). Well I know I went off on a tangent but I hope I answered your OP.
I am not a whaler (IANAW?), but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Experss last night.
I believe that they are neutrally buoyant. They’ll neither sink to the bottom nor float to the surface. In any case, where there be dead whales, there be scavengers a-plenty. With killer whales (they prefer to be called “orca”, thenk-yew-very-much), sharks, seals, polar bears, fish of all kinds, gulls and bacteria, even a blue whale won’t last long. Their bones, if the carcass hasn’t washed ashore, will sink to the ocean bottom.
It depends on the whale: IIRC, “Right Whales” were named such as they were the ‘right’ whales to catch - they would float at death, and were easier to haul in for processing, whreas other species would sink. Eventually, even a sunken body would bloat from internal gases and rise to the surface, likely be washed ashore somewhere.
Scavengers also take care of a good number of carcasses.
Whale carcasses which fall to the deep seafloor apparently play a major role in allowing the creatures which inhabit the famous hydrothermal vents to colonize new vents. The whale carcasses form temporary stepping-stones–lasting for years or even decades–to allow the giant tube worms and giant clams and the other organisms of the chemosynthesis-dependent ecologies of the ocean bottom to cross the undersea “deserts” between the hydrothermal “oases”.
