Life Analysis of isotopes in the whale's
baleen plates published in 2018 indicated that the whale lived in the
tropical Atlantic for its first seven years of life, and then spending some years
migrating north to feed on
krill in the northern Atlantic each summer and then migrating back south each winter. Towards the end of its life, this whale probably spent about a year in the tropics with its calf, born in the winter of 1889–1890, and it was during a migration back north through the
Irish Sea that the whale became stranded. to the local harbour master William Armstrong, from which Wickham and the other salvagers were paid £50 for their work. The
whale flesh and
blubber were removed. Conservation on Hope in the museum's stores began in April 2016 as part of this move. After 10 months in this pop-up lab, it was moved to an adapted
aircraft hangar in a secret location near
Bicester, where
lidar scanning was used to create a 1.5-metre-long
3D printout of the whale, so its articulation could be planned. It was re-displayed there in 2017, suspended from the ceiling in a naturalistic diving lunge feeding posture, the only blue whale skeleton in the world to be hung in this position. ==See also==