001 | MuMa and Siso, the sperm whale: telling the story of the sea through science, education, and environmental protection

Carmelo Isgrò | MuMa Milazzo Sea Museum, MuMa Museo del Mare Milazzo, Castello di Milazzo, Milazzo, Messina, Italy.

In June 2017, a young male sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), approximately 10 meters long, became entangled by its tail fin in an illegal fishing net in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the Aeolian Islands, Sicily. Despite the intense efforts of the Italian Coast Guard, who managed to free it only partially, the whale sadly died after a long and painful agony. Its body was carried by the currents to the shores of Capo Milazzo, where the young biologist Carmelo Isgrò, under the supervision of the Museum of Fauna of the University of Messina, decided to recover the bones in order to reconstruct the skeleton. The carcass, partially submerged in the water, was carefully cleaned and defleshed. During this process, a large amount of plastic debris was removed from the whale’s stomach, including several plastic bags the whale had ingested while alive and even a plastic gardening pot. The whale was nicknamed “Siso” in memory of a young man who had helped the biologist carry the bones ashore the day after the recovery and who tragically lost his life shortly afterward in a terrible scooter accident. After a long process of cleaning and treating the bones, Carmelo reconstructed the skeleton, which is now displayed to the public inside the evocative Bastione di Santa Maria within the ancient Castle of Milazzo, a site visited by thousands of people from around the world each year. The skeleton is suspended in the air by cables and displayed together with the illegal driftnet that caused its death and the plastic waste found in its stomach, serving as a powerful and tangible testimony to the human impact on the sea. The goal is to raise awareness and encourage reflection, so that the tragedy of the sperm whale Siso may become an opportunity for collective growth and consciousness, for both adults and children. From this tragedy arose the opportunity to create an educational and outreach tool and to found a museum dedicated to environmental protection and education, with a message aimed especially at younger generations, promoting the safeguarding of the sea through the combined languages of art and science. From the very beginning, the project attracted significant interest from both the scientific community and the media. In 2019, the Italian Minister for the Environment, General Sergio Costa, held a conference inside the museum. Every year, the museum welcomes more than 50,000 visitors and is attended daily by students from numerous schools. Visitors experience an immersive educational journey through interactive videos on touch screens, virtual reality experiences with 3D headsets, augmented reality, and multimedia artistic installations. These tools help raise awareness about human impacts on marine ecosystems and promote a necessary change in the relationship between humans and the sea. The museum also hosts numerous scientific, cultural, and artistic activities aimed at marine conservation awareness, including conferences, photography exhibitions, concerts, and public events. The museum has been officially accredited within the Italian National Museum System of the Ministry of Culture (MiC) and in 2022, the Museum received a prize by the European Commission’s DG MARE. In the same year, MuMa participated in the United Nations Ocean Conference, presenting the project Let’s Digitize MuMa, developed in partnership with UNESCO-IOC and the PRADA Group. Siso’s story has now returned to the sea through the restoration of a wooden sailing boat called Cassiopea, that has been transformed into a small oceanographic vessel and floating laboratory for research and education.