Illawarra Mercury, January 2, 2009: Car keys - understandable - but how do you lose a 30-tonne whale?
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In the case of a humpback at Port Kembla, it happens when most of the people who helped bury it move on.
Where, for example, is Brad Kenyon, the aerial patrol pilot who organised for the whale to be relocated to Red Beach?
Or what about people from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, whale rescuers ORRCA and the water police who blubbered and buried it?
"We've been back in touch with the Australian Museum, but the people who were involved at the time are no longer there," Port Kembla Port Corporation sustainability co-ordinator Trevor Brown said.
Experts spent a day digging up the beach to find the whale's skeleton, but there was no sign of it.
The story of the humpback whale that washed ashore, covered in shark bites, captivated the Illawarra 15 years ago.
Hundreds of people, many visibly upset, came to see it.
It inspired community action, with science and nature lovers starting a process to make sure the community could one day benefit from the sad death.
Once hunted to the brink of extinction, humpbacks are acrobatic creatures sought after by whale watchers.
They migrate along the east coast from breeding grounds off Queensland to feed in the Antarctic region, passing the Illawarra around October on the way down and around July on the way back.
They can grow up to 18m and weigh 40 tonnes.
When Mr Kenyon lobbied for the whale to be buried in 1993, he said it was because he "didn't want to see a good research opportunity go to waste".
"I love the sea and I think there is still so much to be discovered about its creatures," he said.
So far, in 2008, it has been only the Port Kembla Port Corporation that has showed any interest in finding the whale skeleton.
Hopefully more people will come on board as word of the mystery spreads.
The Mercury has already searched its archives and will pass on its photographs of the day in the hope they will help find the whale.
With the Port Kembla outer harbour about to be developed, the missing skeleton is going to have to be found soon.
"This is the time to do it - the next 12 months," Mr Brown said.
- Brett Cox
Whale carcass may not be all together
January 5, 2009: Robson has a good idea where Port Kembla's missing humpback whale is buried, but says authorities should not expect to find the skeleton intact.
Mr Robson said parts of the whale's spine were souvenired, for a set of stepping stones and a rock garden, when it was interred at Red Beach 15 years ago.
The 12m, 30-tonne female died of an illness at sea and washed ashore near Otford in September 1993, before it was buried.
Recently announced State Government plans to develop the outer harbour and convert Red Beach into docks have prompted Port Kembla Port Corporation moves to locate the skeleton, with the aim of donating it to a museum or scientists.
Mr Robson, 47, said the whale was buried in a direct line with the entrance to the former Commonwealth Rolling Mills, today's BlueScope Coated Products outlet.
Two graves were dug, one for the whale's blubber and one for the carcass, beside a waste water drain that runs from the plant.
"It's buried at the mouth of the creek, above the high tide mark," he said.
The Albion Park Rail man, raised at Port Kembla, attended the burial of the carcass and remembered exactly where it was.
"It stunk to high heaven. I remember that much," he said.
He was unsure if the skeleton would be fit for exhibition as parts of it had been taken.
"It was in someone's garden, I don't know if it's there any more."
The man who had it had since died, he said.
- Michelle Hoctor
Kembla whale a truly big tale
January 6, 2009: Fifteen years on and Brad Kenyon still smiles at the memory of calling a mate with a tow truck to Port Kembla's Red Beach to tow a whale up the sand.
"I called my mate David from Guests Garage and said, "bring your truck - you've got to tow a 30-tonne whale off the beach'," Mr Kenyon said.
"He said, 'you're joking' and I said, 'no mate, I'm not'.
"He came down with his semi-trailer tow truck and the whale was so big it snapped a cable."
Mr Kenyon also remembers the smell.
"It stank to high heaven, let me tell you," he said.
Mr Kenyon, now the owner of Mt Keira Gourmet, was a pilot with the aerial patrol in 1993 when a 12m female whale was washed ashore at Bulgo Beach near Otford before being washed back out to sea by a king tide.
"The aerial patrol got a call from (marine biologist) Sylvia Adams about a whale carcass which was floating in a fairly major boating lane," he said.
"Back then, the aerial patrol had just started their search and rescue work and it was quite a task, measuring currents and all, but we found it in about 11/2 hours, which was quite amazing."
Mr Kenyon co-ordinated the retrieval operation.
He liaised with numerous government officials, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, police and tradesmen to ensure a valuable research opportunity was not wasted.
"At the time, the Australian Museum did not have a complete whale skeleton and they are incredibly expensive to buy, so we buried it, hoping it would one day go in the museum," he said.
The Port Kembla Port Corporation wants to dig up the remains of the whale before works begin on the expansion of the outer harbour and Red Beach becomes docklands.
All attempts to locate the whale's remains have proved fruitless.
Mr Kenyon reckons the whale is still there, but reports the remains had been uncovered several times during excavation works in the interim years have him a little worried.
"If it is still there, we will find it. It just takes a bit of logical thinking," he said.
"It has only been 15 years ... and something that big doesn't move too fast."
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