Purpose of trip is to see if the huge whale is ready to be unearthed
ORLANDO, Fla. (June 11, 2010) – Ripley’s VP Exhibits & Archives Edward Meyer will be visiting Prince Edward Island, Canada, on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 14-15 on a reconnaissance mission to check out the condition of a beached whale the company purchased – and buried – in 1989. He will be joined by Cavendish’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not! franchisee, Thom MacMillan.
“The whale seems to have been strangely off course when it beached on PEI that summer,” said MacMillan. “It is very unusual for a Sperm Whale to be in this part of the world and that’s what initially got our attention.”
MacMillan and Meyer went to look at the whale and purchased it with the intention of putting it into Ripley’s Cavendish museum which had just opened that year. They soon found that the 37-foot long, 20 ton whale was too massive for the museum, and with nothing else to do with it at the time, they decided to bury it and let nature take over the job of stripping the carcass down to bones. They checked on it two years later but it has remained buried and untouched by humans since 1991.
“I imagine the bones have been pretty well stripped by now, at least that’s what I am hoping to find,” added Meyer. “Once we see it, we’ll make the decision as to when we will dig it out. Hopefully we can do that this summer.”
Edward Meyer can be reached at – 407-492-8256. Thom MacMillan can be reached at 902-962-2022.
Corporate Contact:
Tim O’Brien
VP Communications
Ripley Entertainment Inc.
615-496-5949