As researchers and students flock to the dead blue whale, which washed up on the coast of Mendocino two weeks ago, only the most intrepid are sticking around. The smell of rotting blubber is unbearable.

Dedicated volunteers have been hauling off chunks of blubber from the 72 foot whale a piece at the time to be composted.

The rare blue whale was killed in a ship collision on the open ocean on October 19, 2009. Blue whales, once on the brink of extinction, have been making a slow but steady comeback after laws protecting them were put into place in 1966 by the International Whaling Commission.

A large predictable population of blue whales have been frequenting the waters off the coast of Santa Barbara in recent years. This June and July, lucky whale watchers saw up to 40 blue whales at a time as they scooped up tons of krill with their enormous jaws.

A second large population of blue whales was discovered more recently in the Gulf of Corcovado.

Some of the blue whales which summer in Santa Barbara travel to the Sea of Cortez in Baja during the winter, while others are believed to travel to the Costa Rica Dome.

But this growing population of blue whales faces new dangers that were not existent in 1966 and before. Hundreds of giant ships pass at high speeds through the very channels where the blue whales' favorite food, krill, is most predominant. The cargo ships often appoint watchpeople to scout for whales and avoid collisions, the whales are hard to see below the surface and in the dark. There have been several reported collisions a year on the west coast of the United States, and for every reported collisions, dozens more are going undetected or unreported.