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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona

Pathologist finds €500,000 ‘floating gold’ in dead whale in Canary Islands

workers with saw and ladder climbing on to dead whale on beach
University of Las Palmas staff examining the sperm whale, which had a 9.5kg block of ambergris in its intestine. Photograph: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

When a sperm whale washed up dead on a beach in the Canary Island of La Palma no one imagined a valuable treasure was hidden in its entrails.

Heavy seas and a rising tide made it difficult to carry out a postmortem, but Antonio Fernández Rodríguez, head of the institute of animal health and food security at the University of Las Palmas, was determined to find out why the whale had died.

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