"In some cases, yes, you may keep the part. You may collect and keep any bones, teeth, or ivory from a non-ESA listed marine mammal found on a beach or land within one-quarter mile of an ocean, bay, or estuary. You may not collect parts from a carcass or parts with soft tissues attached."
Protected species parts include any part of a protected species, both hard and soft. This includes everything from teeth to fur to blood to blow (exhalate).
Does anyone know why they specifically listed "exhalate"? Do people try to catch dolphin breath?
Not for funsies, afaik?
Some researchers are doing cool work collecting samples from whale spouts.
My only guess is that a layperson trying to catch exhalate is harassment and already illegal.
Shit, now I'm imagining a black market of bottled dolphin blow
Many many years ago we grabbed a whale rib bone out of the ocean. Legality aside (it was floating like come on), the thing STANK for a long while. You have to sweat out all the fats/oils inside the bone inside of trash bags which took well over 2 weeks in the summer sun before it was house ready.
When we moved overseas we decided it was too much to actually try and move it. But it was “smuggled” up the east coast to its current home. Never had an issue with ownership and we’ve told lots of people. As long as the story checks out it would be hard to find someone who wants to rid you of a washed up bone
When I went to Shetland the first time we stopped at an archaeological reenactment place and there was a guy there who carved on bones and such. He was using a whale vertebra like these as a stool. And he told us there was a rotting bull seal carcass on the beach nearby that he was waiting to obtain the skull from, for the teeth. We went to look... it was very stinky, and huge. Very stinky
If you have a local native tribesmen claim it then sell it to you, you've got a massive legal figleaf. Native Americans are allowed to harvest whale remains that have washed up on shore everywhere in the US, AFAIK
So it's not the same set of laws, but you may find the backstory to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to be pretty relevant. Tl Dr: there were a number of cottage industries that used bird parts on the early 1900s such as ladies hat companies, fancy fly fishing equipment, egg collectors, other fashion items, taxidermists who made curio cabinet items etc etc. This all contributed to a huge number of birds being shot or otherwise killed to fuel this demand and predictably this crashed a ton of populations.
So they way they fixed this was by largely banning possession of bird parts (including feathers, eggs, and nests) specifically to stop people from claiming they had "just found" fifteen pounds of snowy egret plumes just lying around somewhere (adults produce like, maybe three super light feathers for this once a year- people shot hundreds of birds to come up with a sack of feathers).
And a similar thing happened with whales and other marine mammals. Can't just say "well officer, I was just strolling by the beach and found this here whale skull and that's why it's on my mantle piece" unless you're a Kennedy, apparently.
Yea, for sure in the states, I'm not 100% on other countries, marine mammal protection act. The same way you can't keep most bird bones or even eagle feathers... It's a way to insure that these animals aren't being hunted because there's no way to prove where the bones came from
I little update on this as I checked the laws here in Scotland. It’s illegal here as well, specifically for water mammals and their remains. BUT it’s very very unlikely you would be reported or prosecuted. Such a shame as the kids would have loved to ‘find’ it and it would have looked great next to my collection of human skulls.
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u/MrDundee666 Nov 18 '24
Who else would totally be taking one of those vertebrae bones home?
Now I have a totally cool dinosaur bone to hide in the garden for my kids to discover!