(PREVIOUSSPREAD)^ LARRYPYNNthe whale on the beach has a story
to tell, and Stephen Raverty is here to
extract it.
The veterinary pathologist has trav-
elled to British Columbia’s remote cen-
tral coast on this sunny Sunday in May
2019 to perform a necropsy on a male
humpback that washed ashore on the
surf-tossed west side of Calvert Island.
Raverty is a towering man, dwarfed
only by the whale itself. He struggled
to get here, navigating up and down
shoreline trails lined with exposed tree
roots, and refusing to relinquish his
case of heavy necropsy tools. He con-
cedes that getting to the mammals on
which he performs a necropsy analysis
along rugged coastlines can be his
least favourite part of the job.
Raverty works for the B.C. Ministry
of Agriculture in an animal-health cen-
tre in Abbotsford, a little over an hour
east of Vancouver. Relatively mundane
work on domestic animals, including
the search for poultry and cattle dis-
eases, pays his bills.
His real passion has been marine life
ever since he volunteered at the Van-
couver Aquarium at age 12, peering
over the shoulders of veterinary staff as
they investigated diseases in fish, frogs,
reptiles and even the odd harbour seal.
Nobody takes pleasure in this hump-
back’s death. But whales die for all
manner of reasons, and when they
do, Raverty can only hope they wash
ashore on an accessible beach. This
particular carcass was spotted two daysago by staff from the Hakai Institute’s
Calvert Island Ecological Observatory,
a research institution that studies
remote coastal environments in British
Columbia. The observatory alerted
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO),
and Paul Cottrell, the agency’s marine
mammal coordinator, contacted Rav-
erty. The necropsy team is rounded out
by Taylor Lehnhart, a DFO technician.Raverty wipes sweat from his face,
takes a gulp of water and sharpens a
25-centimetre forensic knife. He puts
on gumboots and waterproof bib over-
alls, which are incinerated after about
every third necropsy. “They just get a
little too aromatic,” he says.
He walks around the carcass to
assess the breadth of the task ahead
and to look for clues pointing to the
cause of death. I poke the carcass with
my finger and it bounces back, like the
hull of a rubberized inflatable craft.
This whale fetched up on its back
during its northerly spring migration,
eyes pressed against the sand, and fur-
rowed belly with 25 ventral grooves
pointing skyward. Raverty’s eyes followI POKE THE CARCASS
WITH MY FINGER AND
IT BOUNCES BACK
LIKE THE HULL OF AN
INFLATABLE CRAFT.reader’s digest
72 april 2020