Cetacean - Jo Kimmins

Jo Kimmins - KIM 16480563 Final Major Project Cetacean Book Cover and Book MA Photojournalism & Documentary Photography.

London College of Communication May 2018

C E TA C E A N

Jo Kimmins

CETACEAN

Jo Kimmins

Spermaceti

Putrefaction

Cetacean Cavity

Unearthly Landscapes

Epidermis

Epithelium

Osseous

Epilogue

The Whale on arriving at Netherstown Beach. Photograph curstesy of Kevin MacCormic

I don’t know what made me drive the five miles to Netherstown Beach, it was not a walk I did very often, but whether it was serendipity or my destiny I went there that day and came across the decomposing whale.

The oily death smell was indescribable.

At times I can still smell it when I think about her. I felt a huge empathy with this magnificent beast as she lay rotting on the rocks, pecked at by seagulls.

How had she ended up on this beach?

She was very far off course from the sperm whale’s normal migratory west coast path along the continental shelf. But for some reason she had landed here, and I had found her.

The very real fear of the spread of disease from any dead carcass means that the decomposition of the dead is not something one normally gets to observe. With cetaceans, due to their genetic similarities to humans, there is the added danger of zoonotic disease transference.

Consequently, most dead beached cetaceans are disposed of as soon as possible.

Fortunately for me, due to the remote location of the whale’s stranding on the rocks beside a desolate stretch of coast relatively inaccessible to large machinery, magnified by the apathy of the local council to do anything about the carcass meant that she was left there on the rocks to decompose naturally, giving me the opportunity to observe these changes.

Over a five-month period I photographed her decomposition, almost forensically, visiting

her at dawn, dusk, midday, high and low tide.

Slowly watching the changes with her body.

I became impervious to the smell and instead found great beauty in the beast. On each visit she never failed to show me something new.

Whether it was her changing skin colour and texture or her blubber floating luminescence in the water or her spermaceti (whale oil) as it solidified in the rock pools giving me beautiful early morning pastel landscapes.

My camera gave me the power to solicit from her decaying cadaver the underlying forms

of a more beautiful transformation.

It is said that whales are afraid of drowning and that is why they strand themselves.

How afraid was this whale in Netherstown, once stranded on the jagged rocks all alone, probably the first time she was ever alone, in excruciating pain as her own weight would have crushed her internal organs. Her death would not have been dignified or easy.

I never saw her sleek immaculate body when she was first beach but found her three weeks later. By which time, someone had already ravaged her body by sawing off her lower jaw

Active decay and the sawn-off jaw.

and she was only barely recognisable as a whale, having passed through the initial stages of decomposition, and was well into the third phase of active decay. Blubber was melting into greasy, fat stalactites in the hot sun. Her body was a mass of thin sinews of flesh.

These initial decompositional colours were mainly black and white with occasional pinks and browns. With time, her continued decomposition and the ceaseless power of the incoming tide twice a day, her body collapsed, smaller bones were washed away, and her flesh became entangled around the remaining structure.

From a precariously placed step ladder I managed to shoot an aerial view of this now strange looking beast; like some undiscovered creature from the deep.

At this point in her decomposition the colours were mainly beige, but the deeper russets and yellows were slowly beginning to show themselves. The black skin and the white blubber were a constant until the end.

Her body became a planetary landscape of hills and valleys, roads and lakes. Small holes in her flesh became apertures into her inner sanctum where light shone through her flesh giving an ecclesiastical like orange glow within the whale.

I began to see that death was not the end but a transitional stage of life. It transferred life through the eternal cycle of existence as the carcass separated back into its basic components.

These elements returning back to the earth, water and air only to be consumed by other life forms - plants, animals, bacteria and fungus - in a seemingly universal recycling process. I watched the seagulls get fat on her carrion, as I am sure did many rats and other scavengers.

When the tide was in she must have also given life to and fed a plethora of fish, crabs and other sea creatures. Death giving life as it disintegrates

to regenerate new life in this eternal reprocessing of chemical compounds, molecules and atoms.

Who knows what creature once lived with the carbon atoms now supporting my body through its life and what will live from it after I die.

Slowly her body dried out and the deeper russets, yellows and purples came out.

Ribbons of dried flesh fluttered in the wind like Buddhist prayer ribbons. Most of the smaller

Aerial view of the rotting carcass

bones washed out to sea; only the larger bones remained covered by a large cloak like carapace.

The blubber took on another life as it floated in the sea. No longer a mass of compact motionless fat it became luminescent and floated in the gently rippling waves with a mysterious and esoteric beauty. Small particles floated on the surface of the water like distant galaxies and strange shapes floated like mythical animals one might discover while cloud watching on a spring day.

My favourite time of day was dawn. Being the summer, dawn broke between 4 and 5 am. At daybreak I would drive the five miles, park and walk the path to where she lay. Each time I saw the dawn break and the sun creep up over the horizon I was awestruck by the enchanted beauty and always felt privileged to be a witness to this daily miracle. The sea, unable to absorb all the sun light, reflected it back in liquid pinks and oranges. The clean air of the Irish Sea magnified the colours of the sky ranging from oranges and reds to deep blue accompanied by the moon and the occasional lingering star. Alone with the sea birds, the resident seals and the whale carcass it was as if the rest of the world was still asleep and I was only person lucky enough to be witnessing this incredibly beautiful and magical time of the day. Later as the sun rose high in the sky and the world awoke, normality and the routine of the day returned, and the magic was gone. But the memory remained.

On one very special dawn visit the

spermaceti had oozed out of the whale’s head and solidified in the cool of the night in the shallows of low tide. It had formed thin, almost metallic, blue layers, an iridescent baby blue with the pink and purple seaweed barely visible underneath the congealed spermaceti. I was so fortunate to be there that morning and to witness this incredible sight, capturing those fleeting moments with my

The whale shroud

camera.

As the sun rose the spermaceti melted, the tide came in and it was washed away forever.

The spermaceti, that had been such a valuable commodity for the whalers; that had man kill untold numbers of sperm whales to satisfy their lust for this oil, had given me a surreal and wonderous dawn. Men had chased after spermaceti the same way they chased after gold in the Klondike. They became extremely rich butchering these magnificent and little understood creatures.

She lay there decomposing for months, sometimes I felt she was staring out to sea, yearning for that weightless freedom of the water, waiting for the tide to take her body home. But the tide was not strong or high enough. She needed a storm and a leap tide but that was never to be. Before the sea had a chance to claim her and all her skin and blubber gone someone came, one night, and dragged away her head, leaving the last remaining strands of skin to float back out to sea.

Sperm whales have a very intricate social structure. The females live in large pods in the tropical and temperate waters of the world between 40°N and 40°S. While the males live a more solitary, itinerant existence in the colder polar waters. They live in small groups until they reach sexual maturity at 30 when they head off on their own only to encounter other sperm whales when they eventually return to the warmer seas looking for females to mate with.

The matriarchal units consist 20 to 30 whales.

A mixture of mothers and their young, young male whales remain with the female pod until between 5 to 20 years old, and older females who no longer procreate but who not only help baby sit the young, but whose knowledge and life experiences are invaluable to the pod. Over the years they have built up a detailed mental map of the deep oceans helping the pod during unusual weather patterns, or scarcity of food navigating them to safety or old feeding grounds.

The females live communally, taking it in turns to look after the young calves or dive in search of squid. An adult is always standing guard at the surface and they have even been observed suckling one another’s young.

Meanwhile other mothers dive more than 6000 feet into the bathypelagic zone in search of food knowing that their young are protected.

In these dark depths the whales use their very sophisticated echolocation system to not only pursue their prey but also to communicated with the whales remaining on the ocean surface. While we are visual and see the world through our eyes, sperm whales see the world though the sounds they make and hear. It is the most complex and powerful sonar system in the natural world. Their ability to make and process these sounds is undoubtedly aided by their brain which is the largest brain of any creature on earth. They have different sounds for echolocation and communication. They communicate in clicks, and constantly chatter

amongst themselves. Indeed, some of these clicks have been translated by sperm whale experts. When resting in a group on the surface they are very affectionate with each other and continuously touch and caress each other by rolling over one another, gently nudging and almost stroking each other.

The whales have such a strong social bond that a sperm whale injured by a boats propeller was observed being carried to safety on the backs of her fellow companions. They have also been observed protecting their young, weak or elderly members of the pod from groups of hunting orcas. Much like the Roman Army’s ‘Tortoise Formation’ they create a protective circle around the weak or young and fight off the predators with either their sharp teeth or immensely powerful tails until the hungry orcas leave empty handed.

It was this social bond that made it so easy for whalers to kill entire pods of sperm whales. As soon as one was injured the others stayed around to try and help and were then slaughtered as well. The early whaling hunting methods were savage and guaranteed the whale a slow and painful death. From the moment the harpoon was hurled and imbedded into the whale’s flesh the whale’s horror began and could last for hours. The harpoon was not to kill the whale but to attach the whaling boat to the whale. The pain and anxiety transformed this habitually passive, shy animal into a panicking crazed monster who would swim, dive and lash

against the pain of the harpoon while the whalers waited for it to tire. As the whale slowed the whalers pulled themselves closer until alongside the whale’s sleek body.

A killing lance would then be thrust deep into the whale through its layers of blubber, in a churning motion, searching for the whale’s vital organs. This could take up to fifteen attempts while surrounding the boat in a river of blood.

Once the lungs were pierced the whale would begin to choke on its own blood and a twentyfoot geyser of blood and gore rained down from his spout. Eventually the whale went into its ‘death flurry’ as its tail thrashed madly, and its jaws snapped crazily as earlier meals were regurgitated. The whale swam in ever shrinking circles until as suddenly as it had all begun with the hurling of the harpoon a calm returned.

The whale now a huge black corpse completely immobile drifting in an ocean of its own blood and vomit.

The sea red with their mother’s blood, the young followed the whaling boats for days searching for their relations long after they had been butchered. We owe these whales a huge debt of gratitude. Their spermaceti lubricated the industrial revolution and lit up the dark streets of 18 and 19th Century Europe. This oil fuelled lanterns, street lighting and light houses and oiled the machinery that was at the very core of the 18th and 19th century industrial revolution.

I wonder had it not been for the sperm whale would our society be as advanced as we are now?

The whaling industry diminished after the invention of kerosene and crude oil but after the second world war was renewed with new vigour, using more advanced steam powered whaling vessels with harpoons no longer hand thrown but fired accurately out of deck cannons.

A state of the art hunting machine enabling whalers to kill over 20,000 whales annually to be converted into margarine, animal feed, glue, cosmetics, break fluid and leather preservatives.

This continued until 1985 when the International Whaling Commission gave them protection.

Their current status has recently changed from endangered to vulnerable.

To this day no one really understands the function of the spermaceti within the macrocephalic heads of the sperm whales which take up over one third of their bodies. Some researchers believe the spermaceti aids the whale’s echolocation system while others think it might be a buoyancy aid helping the whale dive into the deep unfathomable oceanic mountain ranges searching for food. Either way it cost them dearly.

It is believed by certain scientists that sperm whales even hold one of the keys to helping reduce climate change by creating a trophic cascade and reducing carbon dioxide levels. Sperm whales release faecal plumes, extremely rich in iron and nitrogen, elements that are scarce in the euphotic zone. These faecal plumes fertilize the plankton that lives in the euphotic zone and not only feeds a diverse

population of marine life but also absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The plankton eventually dies and sinks to the ocean floor where it remains with the absorbed carbon dioxide for millennia.

This is a book that in literal terms is about the decomposition of a dead beached sperm whale. However, it is more about life than death; about not fearing death but embracing its beauty and its ability to give life. But most importantly, it is a celebration of an incredibly sophisticated species that has swum the oceans for millions of years and without whom our industrial

revolution might not have been so successful, or might not have happened at all. As we humans blunder our way through our progression from caveman to present day we pay little thought to the creatures and destruction that has made it possible. This is my tribute of veneration and apology to all the sperm whales killed by man for his venal self-interested gains. Animal spirituality says that if a whale comes swimming into your life she brings you creativity. I believe that was certainly true for me. The whale came into my life and gave me an endlessly changing canvas to photograph

The Whale looking out to sea, waiting for the tide to take her body home.

Cetacean Bibliography Allen D. (Director) 2006 ‘Ocean Odyssey’ (DVD) Crace J. 2013 ‘Being Dead. Picador, London Crowther P. & Wunsche I. 2012 ‘Meanings of Abstract Art: Between Nature and Theory’ Chapter 17Meaning in Abstract Art From Ur-Nature to the Transperceptual Ellis R. 2011 ‘The Great Sperm Whale’ University Press of Kansas Feininger A. 1989 ‘Nature in Miniature’ Thames and Hudson London Feininger A. 1986 ‘In a Grain of Sand, Exploring Design by Nature. Sierra Club Books, San Fransisco Feininger A. 1979 ‘The Anatomy of Nature’ Dover Publications, New York Gordon J. 1998 ‘Sperm Whales’ Colin Baxter Photography, Scotland Hoare P. 2009 ‘Leviathan or, The Whale’ Fourth Estate, London Hoare P. 2013 ‘The Sea Inside’ Harper Collins, London Mann J. 2017 ‘Deep Thinkers, an exploration of intelligence in whales, dolphins and porpoises.’ Ivy Press, London Melville H. 2012 ‘Moby Dick’ Penguin, London Monroe M. (Writer) Psihoyos L (Director) 2010 ‘The Cove’ (Video recording) Philbrick N. 2005 ‘In the Heart of the Sea’ Harper Collins, London.

Rexer L. 2013 ‘The Edge of Vision The Rise of Abstraction in Photography’ Aperture, New York.

Whitehead H. 2003 ‘Sperm Whales – Social Evolution in the Ocean’ The University of Chicago Press, USA.