1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,800
Speaker 1: We do know that well that after more than two

2
00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:07,400
Speaker 1: years of restoration work and fundraising efforts the Museum and

3
00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:11,399
Speaker 1: Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, they've reinstalled one of

4
00:00:11,440 --> 00:00:16,400
Speaker 1: their iconic exhibits, Melville the pigmy blue Whale is back

5
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:19,919
Speaker 1: up on display. It's a valuable scientific record of this

6
00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,320
Speaker 1: endangered species. And on the line to tell us a

7
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:24,800
Speaker 1: bit more about the display is the Museum and Art

8
00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:30,480
Speaker 1: Gallery of the Northern Territories Curator of Territory History, Jared Archibold.

9
00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:34,479
Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Jared, get a Katie doing Yeah.

10
00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:37,400
Speaker 1: Really good. Great to have you on the show. Now, Jared,

11
00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:40,800
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about this pigmy blue whale.

12
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:45,760
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's a specimen that was twenty two meters long.

13
00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:50,000
Speaker 2: It was found in the very early eighties at Cape

14
00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 2: Hotham and as a skeleton, so the actual whaler beached

15
00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:57,440
Speaker 2: and had rotted away and just left the bones. They

16
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 2: were recovered by the museum in nine eighty one using

17
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:04,399
Speaker 2: a barrel boat and bingis and a RAF helicopter to

18
00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:07,120
Speaker 2: bring in the skull and the lower jaw. They were

19
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:11,840
Speaker 2: then stored and then put on display in nineteen ninety two,

20
00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:14,600
Speaker 2: and then it had to be pulled back down in

21
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 2: ninety nine for building maintenance. There's nothing to do with

22
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,920
Speaker 2: the skeleton as such, and we hoped it would go

23
00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:23,280
Speaker 2: back up on display very quickly, but it didn't, and

24
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:26,880
Speaker 2: it's actually taken us twenty five years to actually reinstall.

25
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:29,160
Speaker 2: But we had to do a whole lot more work

26
00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,640
Speaker 2: because things had changed, engineering had changed, and we had

27
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:37,280
Speaker 2: to just make sure that it was safe and ready

28
00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:39,080
Speaker 2: to go on display for everyone to see.

29
00:01:39,319 --> 00:01:42,360
Speaker 1: It'll be wonderful, wonderful thing to say, like how big

30
00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,119
Speaker 1: is it for our listeners?

31
00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,160
Speaker 2: Okay, so the actual length of the whale was twenty

32
00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 2: two meters long, so it's big. It is a pygmy

33
00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:55,680
Speaker 2: blue whale. So when we say that it's a subspecies

34
00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:59,440
Speaker 2: of the blue whale, which is the largest analysts ever lived,

35
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:03,760
Speaker 2: and they get up to about thirty three meters long,

36
00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:07,160
Speaker 2: so this is a subspecies. It gets to about twenty

37
00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:09,040
Speaker 2: four meter. It's still very big, but not as big

38
00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:13,919
Speaker 2: as they're much larger cousins. And it's the way we've

39
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:15,639
Speaker 2: done it. We've done it on a wall in our

40
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:19,320
Speaker 2: maritime gallery, so you can actually stand inside its head,

41
00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:21,720
Speaker 2: so it's down at floor level and then it goes

42
00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 2: right up the wall and then comes back down, so

43
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,120
Speaker 2: you can actually get a real idea of what are diving.

44
00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:28,800
Speaker 2: A large diving bailing.

45
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:31,480
Speaker 1: Whale would be like, wow, how cool, What a wonderful

46
00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:34,359
Speaker 1: thing for us to have on display here in the NTA.

47
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's really cool. It's bailey like. Big

48
00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:41,320
Speaker 2: whales are not something that's super common in our northern waters,

49
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:44,800
Speaker 2: not at all. But these ones do move up and

50
00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:46,919
Speaker 2: down the west coast, up into Timour and then back

51
00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:50,600
Speaker 2: down towards Perth. And we believe this one either got

52
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:52,920
Speaker 2: sick or maybe got lost. We don't know, We will

53
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:55,320
Speaker 2: never know what actually happened, and he's coming to our

54
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,280
Speaker 2: waters then washed up in the Adelaide River on the

55
00:02:58,320 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 2: coast Okapotham.

56
00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:02,720
Speaker 1: There you go. And so it does sound like it's

57
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,240
Speaker 1: quite a significant display for us.

58
00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:09,000
Speaker 2: Here in the nt Absolutely. Yes. So it's the only

59
00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:11,399
Speaker 2: actual specimen of a pig and blue whale that's been

60
00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:15,320
Speaker 2: collected because we haven't seen any other ones. There has

61
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:20,440
Speaker 2: though been sighting, one sighting of a small pod north

62
00:03:20,480 --> 00:03:22,480
Speaker 2: of the Tiohey Islands just a couple of years ago.

63
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:25,280
Speaker 2: So that was the second record that we know of, so,

64
00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:30,080
Speaker 2: as I say, quite unusual but very exciting. And doctor

65
00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:33,040
Speaker 2: Carroll Palmer's doing a lot of work with the indigenous

66
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:37,960
Speaker 2: sea rangers on whales and dolphins and jugon in that

67
00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,240
Speaker 2: area to learn more because we don't know everything. We're

68
00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:45,480
Speaker 2: still learning. So yeah, it's all a learning process. But

69
00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:49,880
Speaker 2: this gives people an idea of how big a large

70
00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:50,320
Speaker 2: whale is.

71
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I understand that the museum and art gallery,

72
00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:56,040
Speaker 1: like you've been fundraising for quite some time to be

73
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,080
Speaker 1: able to get these back up on display.

74
00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:04,480
Speaker 2: Yes, so we had a fundraising dinner a couple of

75
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:07,160
Speaker 2: years ago and that really helped us to get that

76
00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:12,640
Speaker 2: money together to put this up. So, although it's big,

77
00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:14,280
Speaker 2: it costs a lot of money because you've got a

78
00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:16,440
Speaker 2: lot of engineering involved. We have to make sure that

79
00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:20,080
Speaker 2: every bone that is hanging above people is safe. You

80
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:23,440
Speaker 2: can't break and fall. We have to make sure that

81
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:26,640
Speaker 2: the armature, the big steel framework that goes up before

82
00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 2: the backboard goes up, before the bones go up, is

83
00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:33,880
Speaker 2: safe and engineered to specifications. The backboard itself so that

84
00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:35,960
Speaker 2: gives you the shape of the actual whale with the

85
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,120
Speaker 2: skeleton on it. It has thirty two sheets of marine

86
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:41,200
Speaker 2: fly in it, so two point four B one point

87
00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:45,159
Speaker 2: two meet a marine price sheet, so everything is huge.

88
00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:49,000
Speaker 2: It's logistically it's quite large, and just purchasing that amount

89
00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:52,000
Speaker 2: of timber and then tracing that ad and carting out

90
00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:54,320
Speaker 2: the shape. There's just a lot of works that it's

91
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:56,640
Speaker 2: taken us a fair while. It's been a big team

92
00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:59,960
Speaker 2: on its on and off and it's come through.

93
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,279
Speaker 1: How wonderful and so it is like it's on display

94
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: now and has it only been a few days up

95
00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:08,320
Speaker 1: on display and how popular has it been.

96
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:11,960
Speaker 2: We had a big launch just this last weekend, so

97
00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:13,839
Speaker 2: it has been up a little bit before that, but

98
00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:16,320
Speaker 2: we had some other work that was going on in

99
00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:18,520
Speaker 2: another gallery, which meant we had to close the gallery

100
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,520
Speaker 2: it was in although it was finished. So that's the

101
00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,480
Speaker 2: Maritime Gallery. They're all now open now so people can

102
00:05:23,520 --> 00:05:26,000
Speaker 2: come in and have a look. So yeah, it's basically

103
00:05:26,279 --> 00:05:29,600
Speaker 2: now on display and open to the public whenever wear open.

104
00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:32,479
Speaker 1: Awesome stuff. Well, Jared, you have got one of the

105
00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:35,839
Speaker 1: most interesting jobs in the Northern Territory. I reckon you've

106
00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:40,200
Speaker 1: always got something interesting to talk about. It must keep

107
00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:44,160
Speaker 1: you on your toes, that's for sure. Absolutely, Yeah, all

108
00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:46,440
Speaker 1: wonderful stuff. Really good to talk to you this morning,

109
00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:48,360
Speaker 1: and thanks so much for letting us start a bit

110
00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:50,599
Speaker 1: more about the display. And I reckon you're going to

111
00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:52,480
Speaker 1: have plenty of people getting down there if they haven't

112
00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:55,359
Speaker 1: already done so, to see the pygmy blue whale.

113
00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:57,920
Speaker 2: Yes, please come down, please check.

114
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: Out wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff. Well, thank you so much

115
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:04,360
Speaker 1: for your time this morning. Jared Archibald, Museum and Art

116
00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:08,040
Speaker 1: Gallery of the Northern Territories, Curator of territory history. Lovely

117
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:08,640
Speaker 1: to speak to you.

118
00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:11,360
Speaker 2: Thank you, Katie, thank you