Friends share unusual pastime

In those days dead whales were sunk at sea, but both men persuaded state officials to let them examine the head of one of the animals before it was towed away. The two men got their answer: The whales died from a red tide-like biotoxin. Both men also got a very unusual hobby for the next few decades.

French went on to become an assistant director of the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Taylor is a former high school biology teacher and has spent years nursing injured animals back to health as a state and federally certified wildlife rehabilitator.

Both men never let vocation get in the way of avocation. Rather, they used their jobs to further their hobbies. Along the way they’ve helping New England, students, tourism, and generations of whales to come.

“We’ve had a great partnership,’’ French said. “ I have the permits to handle the animals, and Dave has a ready supply of strong high school students to help us preserve them. We’ve made out well over the years.’’

Both men are given to understatement. “Made out well,’’ translates into some 55 large whale carcasses and untold dolphins that have been examined and then interred in one fashion or another by both men and a legion of volunteers who have stepped in at one time or another.

The latest collaboration between the two men involved a 2-year-old humpback whale named Tofu that was found floating in waters off Provincetown two years ago, believed to have been killed by a ship strike. Tofu’s skeleton is now displayed at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, N.H..

Many other whales have been similarly stripped to the skeleton and sent off to other museums across the country for display. Other whales have simply buried on beaches, sort of a skeletal savings account, should a museum be looking for a display.