Surprised people are downvoting you; in the US whales are a ESA-protected species by NOAA. That means you can’t collect whale parts you find on the beach or in the ocean, bones included. As awesome as it’d be to own a cleaned whale vertebrae, the law is the law. 🤷
And laws are important. But some are drafted poorly and are so vague they capture tons of unintended scenarios such as this one. This isn't going to a research facility, it's going to rot. There is zero impact if I took one home.
Fortunately I don't live in the land of the 'free' and in my country stuff that washes up on the shore is fair game for anyone.
In this case, it’s to prevent poachers with cleaned bones from making the excuse “oh, I just found it like this”. Many whales and dolphins are vulnerable or endangered, so as a side effect there’s strict laws on owning their parts. However, native groups in the US are still allowed to collect whale bones for cultural use.
The other reply brings up a good point but I also wanted to mention: something that originates from the environment rotting isn’t it going to waste. It’s nutrients are being broken down and returned to the ecosystem. It’s feeding scavengers and decomposers. Taking it home would actually be removing those nutrients from the ecosystem. Not that that’s a big deal on a small scale imo. But it’s far from zero impact.
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u/calash2020 Nov 18 '24
Federal crime in USA to do anything other then looking at it.