Stumpy the Right Whale is Being Installed in the NC Museum of Science

Written by Keith_Rittmaster. Posted in Bonehenge; Cetacean rearticulation, Cetacean Studies, Education, Uncategorized

Keith Rittmaster, the leader of Cape Lookout Studies Program,was in Raleigh, NC last week working with Dan DenDanto and his Whales and Nails team installing a reassembled  52 foot right right whale in the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. Good practice for the 34 foot sperm whale  that Keith  will soon install in the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort, NC.
Un-posed above and posed below. Above, Keith is in the red t-shirt and below in the blue hard hat with the Whales and Nails team.
For more information. about the whale reassembly process in Maine.
And here for more on the installation work at the Museum of Science.
This will be an amazing educational display. Stumpy, and her calves, were right whales well known to researchers. She had migrated up and down the Atlantic Coast for years.She was found floating dead near the NC-VA border after being hit by a large ship. At the time of her death she was almost ready to deliver a male fetus. The fetus died. His skeleton will be displayed where she was carrying him at the time of their death. Her jaw was broken from the ship strike. Pieces of her jaw bone were used to research the damage from a ship strike at different ship speeds. This is valuable information that will help establish the speed that ships can safely travel in waters where these whales live and travel.

Keith Rittmaster’s Fabulous Presentations

Written by Keith_Rittmaster. Posted in Bonehenge; Cetacean rearticulation, Cape Lookout Studies Program, Education

GO-Science
The first one on, Monday evening, September 26, was sponsored by Go-Science’s Science Cafe at McCurdy’s  Restaurant on the Atlantic Beach Causeway.What a great crowd !!! His presentation was about Bonehenge (our sperm whale skeleton re-articulation project) and even though  some of us had heard a presentation about Bonehenge several times, it was still fascinating. He always adds  new pictures and information to each presentation, so I go as often as I can. It was an over flow crowd. The excitement  of moving towards the final 6 months before the display moves to the NC Maritime Museum is amazing when we look back at the whole process.For great information about the sperm whale from the stranding at Cape Lookout January 2004 to its skeleton now hanging in a beautifully dynamic dive in the bonehenge barn click here.bonehenge

 
The second presentation was Friday evening September 30 at the NC Maritime Museum. It was about his NOAA marine mammal survey cruise this past summer. (There is lots of info about this in  previous posts on this blog). It was so mesmerizing that no one got up to leave when it was over, we just asked questions and kept Keith talking. We learned what ship board life was like; how incredibly good the food was; the science of deep water acoustics; how different data was collected; how funny they looked in their safety suits; the differences inside and outside the under water canyon and much more.What a gift Keith is to our Beaufort community  !!