Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Too Bad



But interesting nonetheless. I've always been conflicted about aboriginal hunting, particularly the hunting of whales.

A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago.



Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2 -inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated at 115 to 130 years old.




Notice that the whale was "caught", not killed. Here's a pic of the spear point.



Centuries old





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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Um - I think the article says the whale was killed in a hunt. I don't think I would let anyone carve up my blubber looking for spear points. Maybe they killed it after noone could control it with a twitch. They have a pretty big lip and where would you stand?