Fort Bragg’s blue whale comes home to the Noyo Headlands

FORT BRAGG, CA., 10/19/26 — A blue whale that died off the Mendocino Coast in 2009 finally has a home.

The Noyo Center for Marine Science cut the ribbon Sunday evening on its Whale House LaBONEatory, a 2,240-square-foot building on the Noyo Headlands built to hold the whale’s skeleton while staff and volunteers put it back together. It’s the first new building on the headlands in generations, according to the Noyo Center, and the first piece of its planned Ocean Science Center campus on part of the former lumber mill site.