Weapon Fragment from 1800s found in Whale

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A fragment of a weapon used by

commercial whalers in the 1800s was found in a massive bowhead whale

caught off Alaska last month, suggesting it may be more than a

century old, officials said Tuesday.

 

The fragment, from a bomb lance manufactured around 1880, was

discovered in a bowhead harvested in the traditional subsistence hunt

conducted by Alaska's Inupiat people, said officials from the North

Slope Borough, the local government in northernmost Alaska.

 

The fragment shows that the whale could be nearly 130 years old, said

Craig George, a wildlife biologist with the borough's Department of

Wildlife Management.

 

" It was probably at least a yearling when it was struck, because the

whalemen never took calves, " George said.

 

The find adds to recent information suggesting that bowhead whales

have life spans that extend past a century, he said.

 

The newly accumulated information includes the discovery of old stone

tools, last used in the 1880s, in whales hunted in the early 1990s,

as well as analysis of the lenses of whales' eyes, he said.

 

The fragment of the bomb lance was given to scientists by the Inupiat

whalers, George said. This particular device was easy to date because

it was patented, he said.

 

The Inupiat have long said that bowhead whales live for the

equivalent of two human lifetimes, George said. " That's their

traditional knowledge. We're still catching up, " he said.

 

While commercial whaling is now banned by international agreement,

natives from Alaska, the Chukotka region of eastern Russia and

Greenland are permitted to hunt a fixed number of whales for

traditional, non-commercial consumption. In Alaska, meat from hunted

whales is distributed to all residents of the hunters' villages.