Apr. 29—James Grogan woke up Monday discouraged: It seemed his dream of recovering a complete skeleton from the 48-foot fin whale that washed up on the Anchorage mudflats in November might be slipping away with the tide.
With permission from federal wildlife officials, he and dozens of volunteers disassembled much of the carcass in March.
Back then, the mudflats near Fish Creek estuary were still frozen enough to walk, ride a bike or push a stroller to the whale. Thousands of people, including whole classes of schoolchildren, made the trek out to see the juvenile female fin whale, the second-largest species of cetacean on earth.
The bones had been trucked up to Wasilla, where Grogan hoped to clean them and eventually rearticulate the fin whale skeleton into an educational display at the Museum of Alaska in Wasilla, where he is the executive director.
But the plans ran into a snag.
In March, the ground had been too frozen to pry out much of the whale’s structure, including the spine. The group had been forced to leave the RV-sized carcass in the mudflats, with the hopes that spring melt would bring more favorable conditions. In recent weeks, the remains drew dozens of birds, including juvenile eagles and ravens perching on the vertebrae like barstools.
Winter became spring and the mudflats softened, posing a new set of troubles for recovery of the whale, which sat firm near the Fish Creek estuary.
Last Thursday, Grogan and a few volunteers used a rugged amphibious all-terrain Hägglunds vehicle to get out to the whale before a series of high tides. It was sketchy, Grogan said: The softened mudflats were like quicksand, and the vehicle almost got bogged down, leaving deep ruts.
“It put us in a bad position,” he said. Grogan felt it was so dangerous that he wouldn’t return to the whale in a vehicle. Then, high tides floated the carcass, sending it west. The question was whether he and his volunteers could keep up — or get back out to the animal to try to remove heavy vertebrae from squelching mudflats.
“She’s actually working her way down the coastline to the west,” Grogan said Monday morning. “We’re trying to keep up with her, but the mudflats are too dangerous for us to get out.”
He sounded resigned.
“If we have to wait much longer, the ocean might take her back,” he said. “Which is great, but we’d sure like to have the rest of the skeleton.”
He said he’d been “calling people like crazy.”
“Do you know anyone with a crane?” he asked.
Then, Monday afternoon, Grogan got a welcome phone call from MaryBeth Printz, a longtime Turnagain neighborhood resident who visits the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail daily. Printz reported that the whale carcass had been lifted by the tide and deposited at a favorable spot for Grogan’s interests, right on the beach to the west of Lyn Ary Park.
By late afternoon, Grogan was out at the pungent carcass, along with a volunteer from Alaska Veterinary Pathology Services. Together, they worked to stake down the whale’s vertebrae so that another high tide wouldn’t wash the rest of the animal back into the channel of the inlet.
Still, the job of disassembling what was left of the whale seemed major, with two people hacking away at a mountain of gelatinous tissue. Each vertebrae was about 15 pounds, he said. Grogan jokingly recruited joggers and bikers passing by on the trail, covering their noses with shirts.
“Come on down,” he said. “I’ll get you some gloves.”
There was talk of using a towing boom truck to try to lift the whale, but arrangements needed to be made for safe use of the trail and permission from the city, according to Grogan.
At high tide Monday night, the diminishing remains of the whale were partly submerged in silty gray water, but looked firmly tied to the beach. Grogan said he was calling anyone he could for help, equipment, ideas.
Tuesday would bring another afternoon low tide and a chance to try again.