Matt Messina ’16 preparing the whale skeleton for lift.Matt Messina ’16 preparing the whale skeleton for lift.A 16-foot-whale skeleton has been given a new life – of sorts – on Bridgewater State University’s campus thanks to a preeminent whale skeleton fabricator and is now on display after an unveiling more than 30 years in the making.

Dan DenDanto of Whales and Nails forming connections within the skeleton.Dan DenDanto of Whales and Nails forming connections within the skeleton.

Whale skeleton expert Dan DenDanto and two of his employees raised the long-finned pilot whale into a breach position inside the Dana Mohler-Faria Science & Mathematics Center on Friday in front of an assembled crowd, many of whom knew the specimen from three decades of a less dignified display in a stairway.

Suspension cables are attached to the whale skeleton.Suspension cables are attached to the whale skeleton.

“We tried to do something here that was a little more dynamic,” DenDanto, the owner and operator of whale restoration business Whales and Nails said. “What I say about all of the re-articulations is that I hope they convey more life than death of the animal.”

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