-William and the whale-

I happened upon the short-finned pilot whale
stranded dead at Chilmark, South Beach on the great

coastal island of Martha’s Vineyard.

It seemed to have been attacked by a predator

as the trauma to its snout was severe.

the pilot whale, an oceanic dolphin was young,

older than a calf, but not fully grown.

there was little evidence that beak-pecking sand or winged-

scavengers were responsible for the wounds to its snout
leading to the assumption that a great white shark was responsible.

In the fierceness of saltwater, great whites seldom eat the entire kill

at one sitting as do lions feasting over rare wildebeest rump on the dry savanna. 

the high tide rolled and tossed the carcass onto the narrowing crest of the beach

without ceremony. the low tide left it there.

the high tide wouldn't reclaim it, and with closer observation I noticed

that the whale had recently been tagged by marine biologists from

the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who examined the wounds,

measured its length, estimated its weight and its age, cataloging their conclusions

more for the science on the feeding behavior of the great white shark than for

the pathology of the whale.

I encountered the oceanic dolphin, the dead young pilot whale,
where the sand-plain of the island meets the turbulent tides of the North Atlantic
in the cold of a brilliant South Beach sunset in late December, 2009.