Whales are textbook beauty and grace—and they’re a helluva lot of work to clean up when they die. Today, we’re diving into one of the most bizarre, smelly, and heartbreaking jobs in the world: working on a marine animal stranding response team.

Thanks to Dr. Susan Barco and Dr. Alex Costidis at The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Stranding Response Program, here are a few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The equipment you need to dismember and move a 50-ton whale
• How many calories a whale eats in a day
• The smelliest whale to dissect

Did You Know?

For every foot in length, a whale weighs about two thousand pounds.

To learn more about the stranding response team and how you can support them (as well as how to take a whale watching tour), please visit these links:https://www.virginiaaquarium.com/research-and-conservation/stranding-response

https://www.virginiaaquarium.com/support/give-to-stranding

https://www.virginiaaquarium.com/things-to-do/boat-tours

https://www.virginiaaquarium.com/blog/whale-watching-boat-tours

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

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Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan ChristiansonDigital Operations Specialist - Holly HutchingsMarketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina TomlinIntern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

A special thanks to Brennan Tapp for assisting in this episode's field recordings, and Mackenzie DiNardo (PR Manager at the VA Aquarium) for helping make all this happen.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at curious@quickanddirtytips.com.