In a nondescript building near London Zoo, a pair of double doors stand open to the trees; exotic animals can be heard outside. From a huge freezer, Matt Perkins pulls out a big black plastic bag and heaves it on to a stainless-steel dissection table.
A tail flops out; blood slowly leaks into the sinkhole. For the next three hours I watch, appalled and fascinated, as a harbor porpoise is taken apart before my eyes.
Washed up at Cardigan Bay in Wales last month, the animal is exquisite. Brown with gray striations, it is plump and healthy; at least it would be, were it not for the fact that its eyes have been pecked out.
However, these are posthumous violations. Why did this porpoise die?
It is a case for CSI: Whale — the Cetacean Strandings Investigation team, based here at the Zoological Society of London. And what they uncover is astounding.
With the deftness of a sushi chef, Rob Deaville’s razor-sharp scalpel excises long strips of blubber like huge rashers of bacon. They provide the first clue: a finger-sized cavity, filled with blood.
“And see this?” says Deaville, pressing on the ribcage. “Snapped.”
Then, as he slices through the liver, he finds a massive rip.
We are looking at a murder victim. And the flipper of suspicion points at the porpoise’s own cousins: a teenage gang of bottlenose dolphins.
Yes, cute, smiley Flipper is a killer. This animal, half the size, has been rammed to death. Not for food, just for kicks.
Between them, the CSI chaps — headed by Paul Jepson — have great tales to tell: the fin whale that arrived in Liverpool draped over the prow of a container ship after a collision; the recent sperm whale in Pegwell Bay, crushed under its own enormous weight; and a Greenpeace protest that left common dolphins frozen in blocks of ice on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street.
“The first stranding in central London we’ve had to deal with,” Deaville quips.
Yet these casualties have a paradoxically optimistic message. Statistically, more dead whales may indicate recovering populations (though many also show signs of toxic PCBs and other contamination).
To that end, CSI needs you. They’re about to launch a new campaign (ukstrandings.org) asking the public to report dead or stranded animals. And, perhaps, any suspicious looking dolphins seen in the vicinity.
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