Autopsy of Courtmacsherry Fin Whale on Channel 4

29 June 2009

The post-mortem of the fin whale stranded in Courtmacsherry Bay in January 2009 will be shown on Channel 4 in a new series starting this week.

The programme is entitled "Inside Nature's Giants" and the four part series covers an Elephant (29 June), Fin whale (6 July), Crocodile (13 July) and Giraffe (20 July). All programmes are at 9pm on Channel 4.

The IWDG were contacted by Channel 4 the day the whale stranded having picked up the story from our website. As we did not know what was going to happen to the whale, or subsequently its' carcass, it was hard to know how we could faciliate and whether indeed a post-mortem could be carried out. We had never tackled such a large animal before so were literally going into the unknown.

After lengthy discussion Windfall Films decided to fly over a large whale researcher from the US. Even then access to the whale was not certain as Cork County Council policy was removal opr burial. Fortunately everything worked out and Channel 4 got their autopsy, we learnt more about whales in Ireland, Cork County Council got the whale removed and Kilbrittain community got their skeleton ! Joy Reidenberg from the US was absolutely incredible and took us all through the proces of post-mortem examination of a large whale.

See the amazing footage on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday 6th July

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