Singer Vashon's Gray Whale

Back story 

In April 2024, an adult male gray whale beached on the east side of Vashon Island. After a community member contacted Vashon Nature Center (VNC), and we visited him on the beach, the dream began. Shortly after, VNC reached out to tribal contacts and then obtained a permit from  NOAA to recover the whale bones for educational purposes. Since the whale, whom we lovingly nicknamed Singer, beached in an isolated and hard-to-reach section of the beach, his body was left to decompose naturally - giving his nutrients back to the ocean and allowing a rare opportunity to document the process with a suite of wildlife cameras placed on site. 

Months later, VNC staff and whale ambassador volunteers boarded  boats (six in all!) and recovered all the bones from Singer’s final resting place. From there, they have been transported and stored in various places as volunteers, and the community opened their arms to Singer to help him claim his next phase of being.

Education and Community Involvement 

Thanks to many members of our community, students, and volunteers, Singer’s bones have now been fully recovered, cleaned, catalogued, 3D-scanned, and sprayed with a protective resin. The process of Singer’s recovery is not one VNC could accomplish alone - an abundance of time and resources were generously given to help accomplish our enormous vision. 

30 whale ambassadors volunteered 400 hours towards the project along every step of the way. They monitored the bones, helped in their recovery, scrubbed and mended them, and contributed in getting all the bones sprayed in resin. 150 Vashon high school students helped to catalog, sort, and label the bones through hands-on learning built into VHS’s ninth grade curriculum.  A single eighth grader scanned all 164 bones, a process which took over 70 hours. The Coop, a local non-profit donated space for the bones to solar bleach and dry for over 4 months when they first came ashore, and Pacific Research Labs loaned us state of the art equipment, fabrication space, and employee expertise. All of these contributions were necessary for this project to be possible and we are very grateful for the energy and support. 

You can learn more by reading Seattle Time’s article about the story of student collaboration. Or, learn about the entire project and about gray whales in general by listening to VNC’s  3-part podcast series.

Singer’s role in community education is only beginning. When Singer washed ashore on Vashon Island two years ago, his journey could have ended. But what has  followed has become something much larger—an unfolding story of science, community, and renewal.