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| Last updated at 1:54 PM on 25/05/08 |
Blue whale’s remains reunited with fin 
ERIC MCCARTHY
The Journal Pioneer
NORWAY – The mystery of the blue whale’s missing fin has been solved.
Last week, Dr. Andrew Trites, team leader for the blue whale project, issued an appeal to anyone who might know the whereabouts of the whale’s missing left pectoral fin.
It turns out a Kildare Capes resident has had the fin for the past 20 years.
“It was quite a way from the house,” said John Pitre Jr. in describing where he disposed of the fin so odour would not be an issue.
Wildlife conservation officer Sandra Keough, who was monitoring the exhumation project in Norway for the Province, said she was on-site Sunday chatting with Pitre about the project and commenting that several bones were broken.
“He said, ‘what about the ones that are missing?’” Keough said in recalling her conversation with him.
“Then he said, ‘I know where they are at.’”
Pitre said he found the fin on the beach after someone else had cut it off. He collected it from the beach and took it home.
“He gave us clean bones; he was the hero,” Trites said of Pitre’s contribution. Bones in the blue whale’s grave were still encased in flesh.
Pitre had bones laid out in his front yard when team members arrived to collect them.
“They were actually pretty happy. I’m happy, too,” he said now that the team has the ability to piece the whole whale back together.
As bones were removed from the whale’s skeleton, they were documented, Trites said. Even tiny fragments were tagged. “We now have a blueprint to put it all back together,” he said.
When it was noted that some fin bones were missing, Pitre took the team members to where the fin had been discarded and they found five more bones.
For his contribution to the project, Pitre was presented with a UBC Blue Whale Project cap.
After the fin had been discarded for a couple of years and the flesh rotted away, Pitre said he retrieved the largest bone from it and left it in the field near his house.
“I just never did anything with it,” he said. “I never thought that whale would be dug up and put in a museum.”
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24/05/08
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