Wexford whale a top attraction in London museum
KATE MIDDLETON, Duchess of Cambridge, and Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and environmental royalty, headed up the celebrity guest list at a function held earlier this month in the Natural History Museum in London to formally install ‘Hope’, the skeleton of an Irish whale, as the centrepiece of the museum’s very extensive exhibits.
The gala launch reception was held ahead of the public opening of the exhibit to the millions of people from all over the world who visit the famous museum. ‘Hope’, the latest attraction, is the skeleton of a Blue Whale that live-stranded on a sand bank at the mouth of Wexford Harbour on Wednesday, March 25, 1891.
A sub-adult female, estimated to be 10 to 15 years old, measuring 25.2m long and weighing more than an estimated 100t, she belongs to a species that, as far as is known, is the largest animal that ever existed on planet Earth. Without the buoyancy of water to support her massive body the stranded animal was suffocating under her own great weight as the tide ebbed. Ned Wickham, coxswain of the Rosslare lifeboat, put the dying animal out of her agony.
As ‘a Fish Royal’ the remains were claimed for the Crown and were auctioned. The carcase was sold to William Armstrong, chairman of Wexford Harbour Board at the time, for £111.0.0 for its oil and meat. Some 20 men were employed cutting up the meat for dog food and saving 630 gallons of oil for fuel.
The 4.5-tonne skeleton was purchased by the Natural History Museum in London and is now on display following two years of intensive conservation work on each of its 221 bones.
During the 1800s, the world population of Blue Whales was estimated to number hundreds of thousands of individuals. By 1966, commercial whaling had reduced that number to an estimated maximum of 500 individuals. Whaling was banned to save the species and the population recovered; it is believed the population now numbers more than several thousand individuals, with several hundred in the Atlantic Ocean.
The banning of commercial whaling was a conservation success story so the skeleton of the Wexford whale was named ‘Hope’ in the hope that her dramatic lunge-feeding dive pose on the ceiling of the revamped Hintze Hall will inspire visitors to seek a more sustainable and responsible relationship with the natural world and a secure future for biodiversity by arresting any whittling away of our amazing shared natural heritage. AS a child, I had an affinity with animals. I liked them, and I enjoyed spending time with my pet dog and cat. My motivation to become a vet was essentially because I wanted to care for animals. I started out with the idea that I wanted to do a job like James Herriott, the Scottish author who wrote about his life working as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales. He treated dogs and cats, but he also looked after the animals in local farms and stables. This type of veterinary work has traditionally been known as “mixed practice”, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do after qualifying as a vet.
I took a job in the Scottish Borders, in a small town. I spent the mornings visiting dairy farms, beef cattle farms, riding stables, sheep farms and occasionally fish farms, piggeries and poultry flocks. Then in the afternoons and evenings, I was based in the clinic in the small town where I lived, treating sick dogs and cats.
I enjoyed the mix of work: like all vets, I had been trained in mixed practice at college, and it was rewarding to put this knowledge into practice in the real world. But after five years of it, I began to get restless, for several reasons.
First, it became clear to me that it was increasingly difficult to be as up to date as I felt I ought to be with all of the work that I was doing. When I went to conferences, I couldn’t simultaneously go to lectures on dogs, cats, rabbits, cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry and fish. There was just too much information. I decided that if I wanted to be as up to date and informed as I’d like to be, I had to narrow my field of interest.
So what was it to be? Which part of veterinary would I focus on?
The second reason that I turned away from mixed practice was more selfish and basic: it is tough, tiring work, and I was not convinced that I could continue to enjoy doing it for decade after decade. I liked working outdoors, and getting to know the farmers as we worked together. There was a certain buzz about getting out of bed at three in the morning to help a mare foaling, or to carry out a caesarian on a calving cow before breakfast.
And I felt heroic after the hard physical work of dehorning and castrating a hundred six month old calves in one day. But being realistic, after five years of that lifestyle, I didn’t think I would love doing it for another forty years. I have a great deal of respect for those vets who manage to do so.
My third, and most significant, issue involved the rationale behind the work I was doing. When I was treating pets, the sole focus was the well-being and longevity of the animal. People wanted me to treat their dogs, cats and rabbits to cure their illnesses and to help them live enjoyable lives for as long as possible.
When it came to farm work, the motivation was different: the bottom line was that in most cases, the aim was to produce meat, milk and eggs in a cost effective way. My job as a vet was to facilitate this. There’s
All in all, I knew that my main aim in life was to do work that I was good at, that I enjoyed, and that I felt was in line with my own ethics and motivations. And for me, mixed practice no longer ticked all of these boxes.
At that stage in my career, I took a break, heading off overseas backpacking with my wife. When we returned, I had made my mind up: I was going to become a full time pet vet.
Since then, I’ve just gone to the pet lectures at conferences, I continue to enjoy spending my working day in the bright, airy, controlled environment of a purpose-built veterinary clinic, and I no longer have to face the ethical dilemmas created by the challenge of farm economics. This narrower focus of interest has suited my personality and temperament well. I’m convinced that I can offer my patients better care than if I was trying to dash around farms and stables as well as seeing pets in my clinic.
I’m still interested in a wide range of veterinary work, reading occasional articles about cattle, sheep, pigs and horses. I worry that the drive for cheap food is making it more difficult for smaller farmers to deal with challenges like those calves that needed expensive treatments.
It’s now common for vets to specialise. As well as knowing many pet vets, I have friends who have specialised in treating horses, cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry. It seems to be increasingly difficult to be a generalist in the veterinary world. Having said that, most Irish vets still work in mixed practice: there isn’t enough pet work in most small towns to justify a pet-only vet.
I still remember mixed practice with fondness. There’s something rounded and pleasing about the idyllic life described by James Herriot, despite all the challenges.