Pheena the Fin Whale

Berkeley, California, United States

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Animals and creatures

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Pheena is a 50-foot fiberglass fin whale on the plaza of the Lawrence Hall of Science in the Berkeley Hills, California. Designed by artist Larry Foster, she has been there since 1975 as a life-size replica of a teenage female fin whale.

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Pheena the Fin Whale

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Site-level location · 37.8770° N, 122.2409° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Pheena is the kind of sculpture that children are meant to climb on, and have been for fifty years. She is a life-size fiberglass fin whale lying on the plaza of the Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley's public science centre, high in the Berkeley Hills.

The Hall says she arrived in 1975, designed by artist Larry Foster with support from the World Wildlife Fund and modeled as an exact replica of a teenage female fin whale. Fin whales are the second-largest whale species; the Hall says real fin whales weigh 40 to 80 tons, while CBS San Francisco described Pheena in 2016 as 50 feet long. The Hall puts her weight at 3,000 pounds. CBS also noted that, when she was first installed, she came in by air.

Forty years of small climbers took a toll. In March 2016 the Hall sent her to a boatyard in Richmond, California, because repairing a hollow fiberglass whale uses much the same methods as repairing a boat hull. Crews removed the old finish, rebuilt cracks, reinforced the internal steel spine and repainted her to look like a real fin whale. She returned on a flatbed truck on 26 April 2016, slid into place on a giant custom skateboard and lifted by forklift.

She left again in mid-May 2021 for another refurbishment at a Richmond boat repair shop. The Hall says she came home at the end of June with new fiberglass and vinyl ester resin on the cracks and a protective polyurethane coat chosen partly because so many visitors climb her.

The Hall is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to its website in October 2026, with general admission at $27. Check with the Hall before driving up just for the whale, as it does not say whether the plaza can be visited without a ticket.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A 50-foot fiberglass fin whale on the Lawrence Hall of Science plaza, made to be climbed on. The Hall's website (Oct 2026) lists opening Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with general admission $27 for ages 3 and up.

ACCESS

Lawrence Hall of Science, 1 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, CA 94720, in the Berkeley Hills. Pheena sits on the plaza outside the museum building; the Hall's phone is 510-642-5132.

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Animals and creatures

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1.1 km away

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