There’s Gold in that Poop: Whale Excrement for Perfume and Medicine

Mr. Supod Juntrapornsin, an expert at the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said, “This valuable whale excrement is from an oval shaped whale with a body about 20- 25 meters long and a weight of up to 20-30 tons. This type of whale excrement is valuable because it contains undigested food in the form of fat that is stored inside the whale’s body. Once the whale excretes, this type of fat is expelled. The waste floats away leaving only this valuable fat floating on the surface. This fat can be extracted to use as the primary ingredient for expensive perfumes and medicines. Generally, we wouldn’t get this much excrement on a daily basis, but recently we’ve been seeing a lot of it floating on the shore, which is very unusual.”

Mr. Somchai Buntiem, age 40, a fisherman who came upon some of this whale excrement, happily reported, “I was fishing around the Koh Ra and Koh Pra-thong area, one day, and I discovered many yellowish, rocklike objects floating on the water. Once I got a closer look, I discovered that they were whale excrement. I was familiar with it as I had come across it once before when the tsunami hit a few years ago.”

Five years ago, Mr. Buntiem was able to sell whale excrement for 3,000 baht per kilo. He was shocked to discover that the price has now gone to 30,000-50,000 baht for a kilo of the yellow gold.