Crowds have been flooding into Rye Harbor State Park for the past two days to catch a glimpse of Snow Plow, the humpback whale that washed ashore Monday morning.
For spectators who had never seen a whale before, time is about to run out.
“Probably by 10 o’clock (today), the animal will not look like a whale anymore,” said Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium.
Marine officials will conduct a necropsy on the beach today. The procedure, to be headed by the aquarium, will attempt to determine the whale’s cause of death.
This isn’t a fun post-Finding Dory family activity. Karen Provazza, director of marketing for the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, said the necropsy may be graphic, especially for children.
“When they cut the carcass, it will be disgusting. And the smell will be pungent,” she said.
The 18-year-old humpback was first spotted by fishermen and whale watchers Sunday morning out at sea, where she likely died a few days earlier. Visitors described the scene on the beach as both sad and intriguing.
“Viewing is going to be a little more limited than it has been,” Provazza said. “They’re going to secure the area a little more, make sure people are not on the beach, make sure people are not in the water.”
LaCasse said the necropsy will hopefully help scientists learn more about the whale and factors leading up to its demise.
“She’s a young adult in the humpback world,” he said. “We’re looking for any sort of clues we can get.”
The necropsy crew will first use machinery provided by the town and state to flip the whale and examine her dorsal side, LaCasse said. They will then begin to remove layers of tissue, allowing experts to assess the animal’s inner organs, recent eating habits and, possibly, signs of disease.
About 20 aquarium staff members will arrive on site to help with the process. For necropsies of animals this big – the whale weighs about 30 to 35 tons – LaCasse said workers will probably use a front-end loader with a backhoe to remove the tissue. At the end of the day, the remains will be moved into four construction dumpsters provided by the state for disposal at a landfill or incinerator.
“In this case, the animal’s been dead for a while. She’s pretty bloated,” he said. “We won’t have a complete look, but it’ll still be valuable because we don’t get this chance, especially with many humpbacks.”
Snow Plow was the fifth dead humpback whale to wash up on the New England shore over the last three months, LaCasse said, making this examination even more important.
“It could just be a coincidence,” he said. “But we always watch to see if there are any trends within the marine environment or within the species itself.”
The organizations involved plan to conserve the skeleton of the whale to display at a museum sometime in the future.
“Hopefully, she’ll be able to go on and educate and inspire hundreds of thousands of people wherever she ends up,” LaCasse said.
(Katie Galioto can be reached at 369-3302, kgalioto@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @katiegalioto.)