A whale that couldn't breathe for 34 years

During my first visits to the American Museum of Natural History in New York the only thing that impressed me more than the skeletons of the dinosaurs was the sculpture of the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), posed in a dive above the Hall of Ocean Life. I had seen pictures of blue whales in books and eagle-eye views of them in documentaries, but the sheer size of the cetacean astounded me (especially because I was still so small!). No trip to the museum is complete without at least peeking into the recently refurbished Milstein Hall of Ocean Life to see the whale, but what most people don't know is that the making of the life-sized marine mammal is as amazing as the end-product itself.

Long before The Whale (as it is officially known) was in place the museum had an older papier mache blue whale in the Biology of Mammals Hall which had been sculpted in 1907. Richard Van Gelder, chairman of the Department of Mammalogy during the time the new whale was being constructed, would later state "... so far as accuracy was concerned, I couldn't see much wrong with it, mainly because I had never seen a blue whale." (From Rossi 2008) For whatever reason in 1959 it was decided that a new whale was needed, but how to fulfill the museum's mission of making science both "pure" and accessible was open to interpretation.

As Michael Rossi describes in his paper "Modeling the unknown: how to make a perfect whale" (which serves as the basis for this post), the museum long searched for something extravagant to fill the huge space in the middle of the Hall of Ocean Life, but agreement on the blue whale did not mean consensus on how it should be presented or made. Some were adamant that the whale should not be hung from wires, others wanted a floor model of a beached whale (complete with sounds of scavenging gulls), and others wanted to essentially glue the whale to the ceiling.* None of these ideas came to pass, but the fact that no underwater images of blue whales would appear until the 1970's meant that The Whale was practically as much a product of conjecture as established morphological characters.

*[Even though Rossi states that these parts of the story have been covered before he provides no references, and some references, like Van Gelder's quote reproduced above, are incomplete. This is unfortunate as those of us not familiar with the long tale of The Whale are kept in the dark as to some of the most interesting aspects of the story.]

The size of the blue whale and the general lack of good photographs made constructing the AMNH whale very difficult. One option, which had previously been undertaken by the Smithsonian institution in 1903, was casting. The earlier AMNH whale was based off of a scale model of the Smithsonian whale casts and photographs, thus giving it some claim to validity even if only dead whales provided the basis for the reconstruction. While the AMNH staff discussed plans to make a cast of their own for a new whale until the 1930's it was eventually deemed to be too impractical and difficult despite the accuracy it would give the model. A replica seemed to be the better way to go.

The inability of the AMNH staff to come up with a plan for their whale through the 1960's left them in the wake of other museums that constructed their own whales by various means. The British Museum unveiled their whale in 1938 and the Smithsonian replaced their whale with a new fiberglass model in 1960 (with a little help from templates and measurements taken for the British Museum's whale). When Van Gelder was in a place to really start planning for a new model whale in a dive position for the AMNH the previous work done by the British Museum and Smithsonian would prove to be a useful starting point. Francis Fraser of the British Museum, in particular, provided Van Gelder with suggestions and other forms of assistance in constructing a new whale. (That the Smithsonian's trophy-like wall mounted whale literally lost its head in the middle of the night also helped Van Gelder determine what not to do.)

Tensions ran high just as the design for the whale was being finalized in 1966. The director of the museum, James A. Oliver, decided that the mouth of the whale should be open. Van Gelder vehemently disagreed (even threatening to quit over the issue), noting that diving whale would not have its mouth open and that such a change was uncalled for so late in the design process. (It is now known, though, that blue whales can feed underwater so Oliver's recommendation might have made more sense now than in the 1960's.) Van Gelder won the argument; the whale would keep it's mouth shut. With that issue closed it was finally time to start bringing the whale to life. Noted marine-life artist Richard Ellis completed a painting of the blue whale and instructions were given to Displayers, Inc. to come up with a plan for the exhibition of the whale. Once the firm worked out the details of creating the whale their work was sent to the company StructoFab and construction started.

Towards the end of 1967 the parts of the whale were created and shipped to New York and the difficult task of mounting the whale began. It was meant to go up in two pieces, a layer of fiberglass covering the entire model so as to maintain a smooth, natural appearance. Even the smallest details were taken into account, including the small hairs on the chin of the huge mammal, and the model was ready for unveiling on February 26, 1969. The whale you see if you visit the museum today is not quite the same as it was in 1969, however. During the renovation of the hall in 2003 the whale was given an anus and a new blowhole, the former being lacking on the previous model and the latter being of the wrong shape being there were no reliable photos to base it upon. For 34 years the AMNH blue whale could neither breathe properly nor take care of its "business."

The majority of the dusty, fading mounts in the AMNH exhibit halls make me sad. To see a stuffed family of chimpanzees or gorillas is haunting, especially when the diorama is labeled with the name of the benefactor that helped put them behind glass. Perhaps even more bothersome is that some of the animals on display may be driven to extinction during my lifetime, the old skins being all that will remain of them. I get a different feeling altogether from the model of the blue whale. Perhaps it is partly because it is a model, that no "collecting expedition" set out to bring one back to hoist up to the ceiling, but it is such a beautiful piece of art that it serves as a reminder that there are amazing, majestic things in the world still worth saving. The ongoing loss of biodiversity on this planet can make us feel powerless, like there is nothing we can do, but I do find some inspiration in the subtle smile of The Whale. I hope others do, too.

References;

Rossi, M. (2008) "Modeling the unknown: how to make a perfect whale." Endeavour
Vol. 32 (2), pp. 58-63