SITKA, ALASKA

I arrived at the Sitka Sound Science Center where scientist Shannon Atkinson was showing me the first step in making an orca skeleton.

“I'm  happy to show you where we’re cooking bones if you want,” says Atkinson.

We go down and stop in front of two large steel tanks with crab boilers flaming underneath.

Atkinson: And when I open this up it will get a tiny bit stronger, so if you’re not going to like that, you might want to step back. (laughs) So basically, I’m taking the cover off this other vat and looking to see, the stage of this one.”
Reporter: “Whew, that is pretty ripe.”
Atkinson: “And so if you have a peek, it’s almost like whale soup. And see how we’re cooking that up a lot like you would make a turkey soup after thanksgiving…and you can see all the vertebrae there starting to come apart.”
Reporter: “It looks like a giant rack of ribs.”
Atkinson: (laughs) “Well that’s exactly what it is. A rack of orca instead of rack of lamb.(laughs)
So what we do when this is pretty much loosened up off the bones, the students scrape off the soft tissue which we end up throwing away. And then once they do their part, we take over again and do a chemical treatment of the bones and they’ll look nice and white and no one will ever believe they ever looked like this.”

When the Orca carcass was found Atkinson brought it here to teach kids about science.

“When we were told there was a dead killer whale on the beach, on Kruzof Island, in March, we jumped on the opportunity to participate in the necropsy and harvest all the bones. And so we have a complete skeleton of a young killer whale,” says Atkinson.

Students at the center’s summer science camp are about to clean the orca’s 50lb. cranium. It’s sitting in a large sink of water and it takes 3 adults to move it onto the large steel table where the kids are waiting.
It’s been boiled just like the rest of the bones. Later, it’s going to be some lucky kids’ job to reach in the small opening of the back of the skull and pull out the brain.

“This is the part that the kids tend to like. They tend to have an affinity for gross things,” says Atkinson.

I’m expecting the room full of mid-schoolers to be squeamish once they get down to it. But as soon as the smelly chunks of whale flippers,the jaw and vertebrae hit the tables in front of them, they tear into it like it’s no big deal.

Kid: “I’m thinking probably at the teeth, cause…”

But one of them has a little mishap.

Kid: “Ahh…(laughs)some of it just got me in the eye.(laughs) Ewww!
Reporter: “What just got you in the eye?”
Kid: “The juice!Ewww!”
Reporter: “This looks like pretty dirty work.”
Kid: “It is dirty work,I can see why scientists have fun with this.”(laughs)

This isn’t your average science class. Atkinson says many kids aren’t lucky enough to have such a cool specimen to learn from.

“Yeah, these kids are lucky, this science camp is exposing them to a lot of neat thing. Between the red tide last week and an orca scull this week, you can’t ask for more in terms of a kid’s science education,” says Atkinson.

It’s time for the part I have been dreading but the kids are so excited to see whale brains they squeeze around the table to watch.

Kid: “Okay, I’m feeling the brains. It feels like homemade pesto!”
Second kid: “It looks like cat food.”

After scrubbing and carefully removing all the whale tissue, the bones will be soaked for about three weeks to remove the remaining oil in the bones. Then, later in the summer, a group of undergraduates will start piecing the skeleton back together. Finally at the end of this long process, the completed orca skeleton will be on display at the Sitka Sound Science Center.

“We hope to have the skeleton articulated to unveil for Alaska Day,” says Atkinson.

Dr. Atkinson says this will be one in five of completed orca skeletons in the United States since they are rarely found intact.
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