In mid July, a fishing village on the Bering Sea butchered a beached whale believed to have been dead for several weeks. Members of the village consumed "muktuk," the skin and pink blubber layer of the whale. Of the fourteen who ate muktuk, eight came down with symptoms of botulism poisoning. A doctor reported the cases to Alaska Section of Epidemiology who investigated the cause. Muktuk was determined to be the vehicle as fermented, and raw marine animal, meats have a high risk of botulism type E. Laboratory tests confirmed the presence of Clostridium botulinum type E toxins in the muktuk.