A Beached Whale in Spain Washed Up With a $500,000 Chunk of a Pricey Material in Its Guts

Herman Melville once wrote about the strange beauty of ambergris in Moby Dick, marveling that the fragrant material once widely used to make perfumes is found exclusively in whale intestines. Countries like the U.S., Australia, and India have banned the ambergris trade as part of their bans on whale hunting, but it's still a highly valuable material today as its still used for fragrance purposes.

Antonio Fernández Rodríguez, an animal health researcher at Spain's University of Las Palmas, just got up close and personal with a massive chunk of ambergris. According to The Guardian, a beached sperm whale washed up on the shore of the Canary Island of La Palma and he began digging into its carcass to find out how the massive animal died. He found a 21-pound chunk of ambergris worth $560,000 in the mammal's entrails.

The ambergris appeared to have ruptured the whale's intestines, which led to its death and eventual beaching. It was a rare find considering only one to five percent of sperm whales are found with the material inside them. A secretion from the bile duct, the highly-sought-after waxy substance is believed to coat indigestible objects the animal has eaten like squid beaks to protect their internal organs.

While sperm whales are protected under international trade laws, ambergris is fair game because it's considered an animal waste product. As a result, it's legal to sell in many places. The substance has been used in perfume-making for centuries thanks to its ability to help a scent stick to a person's skin. Some synthetic alternatives have been created over the years, but some companies still use the real thing for certain fragrances.

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Fernández, the head of the institute of animal health and food security at the University of Las Palmas, said that the institute is looking for a buyer for his valuable find. His hope is that the money raised will go toward helping victims of the volcano that erupted in La Palma in 2021, causing nearly $900 million in damage and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses.

“The law is different in every country,” Fernández noted of the situation. “In our case, I hope the money will go to the island of La Palma, where the whale ran aground and died.”

A beached whale can often be a ticking time bomb of exploding guts, so if you see one on the shore, don't start carving it open hoping to find ambergris.