Sperm whale off the coast of New Zealand (EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)
Just because something's gross
doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Case in point: Whale vomit. A man taking
his dog for a walk on the beach came across a pile of (maybe!
hopefully!) whale regurgitation. Now he could stand to make more than
$50,000 from the find.
Who would pay tens of thousands
of dollars for whale excrement? The perfume industry, of course. The
substance, while foul smelling when it first hits land, becomes much
more pleasant as it dries in the sun—and can be used to help prolong the
scent of perfume.
According to the BBC, Ken Wilman's dog began sniffing the substance (known as ambergris)
while walking on Morecambe beach in England. Wilman went to
investigate, picked up the stone-like object, gave it a whiff and then
dropped it like a bad habit. Wilman told the BBC: "When I picked it up
and smelled it, I put it back down again and I thought 'urgh.'"
Wilman left the beach, but
something about his stinky discovery stayed in his mind. He did a little
research at home and figured out that it was likely ambergris. He then
went back to the beach and retrieved the seven-pound object. A French
dealer has already offered more than $50,000.
While these sorts of finds are rare, they do occur. Last year, an 8-year-old boy
found a one-pound piece of ambergris that was expected to bring in up
to $63,000. And in 2006, a man in South Australia found a whopping
32.5-pound piece of ambergris. Estimated value: $300,000.
If only cat hairballs had the same market value.
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