"Beaching May Unlock New Clues!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Picked up my morning newspaper and began to leaf through it.  Took me one page before I found an article titled "Beaching may unlock new clues."  A sub-head read: Specimen may be rare spade-toothed whale that's never been spotted alive.  Wow!!!  The newspaper story was entered by Associated Press writer Charlotte Graham Malay.  I was naturally interested in the story since I enjoy reading about sea creatures as well as learning about the many varieties of sea creatures that exist. And...to find a specimen of a sea creature that has never been spotted alive is amazing!  The Associated Press story comes from Wellington, New Zealand and begins with....Spade-toothed whales are the world's rarest, with no live sightings ever recorded.  No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean.  However, scientists in New Zealand may have finally caught a break.  The country's conservation agency said Monday a creature that washed up on a South Island beach this month is believed to be a spade-toothed whale.  The five-meter-long creature, a type of beaked whale, was identified from its color patterns and the shape of its skull, beak and teeth after it washed ashore on an Otago beach.  "We know very little, practically nothing" about the creatures, Hannah Hendricks, marine technical adviser for the Dept. of Conservation, said.  "This is going to lead to some amazing science and world-first information."  If the cetacean is confirmed to be the elusive spade-toothed whale, it would be the first specimen found in a state that would permit scientists to dissect it, allowing them to map the relationship of the whale to the few others of the species found, learn what it eats and perhaps lead to clues about where they live.  Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been pinpointed, and those found intact on New Zealand's North Island beaches were buried before DNA testing could verify their ID, thwarting any chance to study them.  This time, the beached whale was quickly transported to cold storage and researchers will work with local Mãori iwi (tribes) to plan how it will be examined, the conversation agency said.  New Zealand's Indigenous people consider whales a taonga (a sacred treasure) of cultural significance.  In April, Pacific Indigenous leaders signed a treaty recognizing whales as "legal persons," although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of participating nations.  Nothing is currently known about the whales' habitat.  The creatures deep-dive for food and likely surface so rarely that it has been impossible to narrow their location further than the southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world's deepest ocean trenches, Hendriks said.   "It's very hard to do research on marine mammals if you don't see them at sea," she said.  "It's a bit of a needle in a haystack.  You don't know where to look."  The conservation agency said the genetic testing to confirm the whale's ID could take months.  It took "many years and a mammoth amount of effort by researchers and local people" to ID the "incredibly cryptic" mammals, Kirsten Young, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter who has studied spade toothed whales, said in emailed remarks.  The fresh discovery "makes me wonder - how many are out in the deep ocean and how do they live?" Young said.  The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand's Pitt Island.  Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found in 1872 on New Zealand's Pitt Island.  Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile's Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986.  DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens were of the same species - and that is was one distinct from other beaked whales.  Very interesting reading...so it was.  
It was another extraoridinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Rangers Jim Fyfe and Tûmal Cassidy walk alongside what is
believed to be a rare spade-toothed whale on July 5, after it was
found washed ashore on a beach near Otago, New Zealand.