For B.C. whale coroner, a gruesome duty to ‘revered’ animals approached with humility

Veterinary pathologist Stephen Raverty, left, and Brendan Cottrell, regional stranding coordinator for the Fisheries Department Canada, pose in this handout photo as they set up for the post-mortem examination of a grey whale in early October 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — DFO (Mandatory Credit)

VICTORIA — When veterinary pathologist Stephen Raverty is chest deep in work, the term takes on a gruesome meaning.

Picture Raverty deep in the innards of a humpback whale, trying to retain his balance as he wades through a quagmire of intestines, blubber and blood.

A photograph that is unsuitable for breakfast-table viewing captures a moment in 2011 as Raverty, drenched from the shoulders down in purple muck, works on a humpback whale that washed up dead on San Juan Island in U.S. waters, just off Vancouver Island.

It’s one of about 2,500 necropsies on whales and other large marine mammals performed over the past 25 years by Raverty, who works for B.C.’s Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

“Yes, it can be difficult to work your way through the carcass with the ribs and so many other tissues of different textures and degrees of slipperiness,” Raverty said. “You have to be very stable on your feet.”

He recalled the “very gratifying” discovery of multiple vertebrae with fractures and dislocations, allowing him to confirm that a vessel strike killed the animal.

A less gratifying discovery was that he had forgotten to tape down the top of his boots, which became permeated with gut contents. “The odour was overwhelming,” he remembered.

Raverty has lately been involved in the investigation of the death of a humpback believed to have been struck by a boat in late October in Howe Sound, near Vancouver. It was among a series of deaths that also included a humpback found dead on Sept. 18 after a BC Ferries vessel reported striking a whale off B.C.’s northern coast, and another found dead on Nov. 8 off Lasqueti Island.

There are the times when work as a whale coroner blows up in Raverty’s face, including the recent necropsy on the Howe Sound humpback.

Swollen by decomposition, the punctured carcass let out a “putrid” eruption. “It’s almost like an explosion, and the wind, the gas, just blows right by you.”

“I still smell the animal when I go by the laundry,” Raverty said in an interview three weeks after the necropsy.

The whale-watching company Prince of Whales announced that one of its vessels had hit a humpback shortly before the discovery of the dead whale on Oct. 25. The company said in a statement at the time that it was “devastated” by the incident and that the whale was seen swimming away.

Raverty said lesions found on the animal — which the Fisheries Department identified as a four-year-old known as BCY1464 or Wisp — were consistent with a strike, but he cautioned that the investigation is still waiting on tests for harmful algae.

“When there is blunt-force trauma with a vessel, we want to know whether an animal is dead or not before the vessel strike. So, we will look at the impact site to see if there is any bleeding.”

Raverty said it was hoped that findings on the three recent whale deaths would be released in the new year.

Caitlin Birdsall, executive director of the Marine Education and Research Society, said it’s not clear whether whale deaths linked to ship strikes have been increasing.

“What we do know is that we’ve had an increase in reporting, and that’s all we can know,” she said. “Most of the time, whales that die are never discovered.”

Raverty does not attend every dead whale in B.C.

But if the animal is accessible, the situation is safe, and resources allow, government officials, researchers and environmental advocates all turn to Raverty for answers.

He works with a “spectrum of animals” from cats and dogs to wildlife, while he estimates marine mammals “probably account for less than two to three per cent of our overall caseload” at the B.C. Animal Health Centre where he works.

Raverty’s interest in marine animals and their anatomy started at the age of 12, when he volunteered at the Vancouver Aquarium, where he learned from the late veterinarian Al MacNeill, who was also a veterinary pathologist for the federal government.

“The scope and breadth of knowledge was just so remarkable,” Raverty said of his mentor.

With a doctoral degree from the University of Stirling, a leading research centre for marine biology, as well as professional certifications from both sides of the border, Raverty’s first examination of a big whale was an adult male southern resident killer whale, J18, that washed up near the BC Ferries’ terminal in Tsawwassen, B.C., in March 2000.

Raverty said the animal had a big abscess on its flank, and his subsequent report found the animal died from a bacterial infection.

A necropsy starts with collecting and cataloguing visual evidence on the ground and potentially from the air with the help of a drone.

“The first thing we do is photograph (the animal), and document any abnormalities,” he said. “We’re specifically looking for evidence of human interactions, whether it’s a vessel strike, propeller strike, entanglements and a variety of other things.”

Then there are the measurements, which is where things potentially start getting messy.

“We cut the blubber, and we measure the blubber thickness and characterize its colour and consistency. In a healthy animal that’s feeding actively, we’ll actually see fat starting to ooze out from the cut surface.”

What follows must be done in a certain order.

“First, we try and do the chest and the chest exam, because there are bacteria in the intestines,” Raverty said. “If we nick the intestines and start to handle other tissues, we may cross-contaminate samples,” he says.

Once internal organs are exposed, they can be harvested for clues, including about the animal’s reproductive history.

Sometimes the cause of death is obvious, including vessel strikes “so violent, that you can actually get a shearing or rupture of the great blood vessels that are emerging from the heart and massive bleeding into the chest and abdominal cavities.”

Other times an examination of the lungs yields clues about the presence of viruses.

Raverty’s tools include butcher’s knives, and mechanical saws to cut through ribs, he said.

But a necropsy doesn’t end with the physical work on the shore.

It continues in the laboratory, where collected tissue and fluid samples undergo further testing.

Raverty said this microscopic work can reveal important clues about the health of individual animals.

He said that not only does his work identify causes of death in individual whales, it can be used to extrapolate the health of the species at a population level.

Over the years, Raverty has also seen the introduction of increasingly sophisticated forensic techniques, including genome and molecular sequencing.

Satellite imagery can trace the proliferation of harmful toxins produced by algae, and in 2021, during the atmospheric river event that flooded the Fraser Valley, it showed a plume of brown water flowing into the Salish Sea.

“Some of the things that came to mind were the changes or fluctuations in salinity that may impact skin integrity,” Raverty said of the outflow. “There are microplastics there. There’s extensive use of fertilizers in the valley, so you’re essentially inoculating the marine environment with nutrients that may allow some of these algae to proliferate and then start to produce toxins.”

In other words, Raverty is not just doing forensic work on animals, but also looking at their larger ecological habitat, collaborating with researchers at universities as well as government scientists.

He said his work would also not be possible without the help of the Canadian Coast Guard and local First Nations.

It can be difficult to bear witness to the deaths of whales, with their status as highly intelligent, charismatic animals in western societies, and their cultural and spiritual significance to First Nations, Raverty said.

“It has a tremendous impact,” Raverty said. “In terms of what it’s like approaching some of these dead animals, oftentimes, the one thing that you appreciate just seeing them in the wild … is just how majestic they are. They are an actual force of nature.”

He said he approaches his work on such “highly revered” animals with a “deep appreciation of the opportunity and a degree of humility.”

“But you have to remain objective.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2025.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press