Cetacean collection - Monkton nature reserve natural history collection.

Earlier on this year I made the decision to hand in my endangered species licence issued by Natural England. It was really down to the fact that I could not see the purpose of building up a private collection of cetacean specimen samples deriving from cetacean strandings along the Thanet coast. Only then to store my collection in boxes for me to see.
So after making enquiries with the Monkton Nature Reserve they agreed to take my entire collection for their Museum. The collection includes bone sample from the Sperm Whale stranding at Pegwell Bay March 2011. The Fin Whale stranding at Foreness Point Cliftonville (autumn 2015) including Baleen plates and bone samples from the many recent Porpoise strandings at Sandwich Bay. For good measure they even took the common seal bones I found in the Stour Estuary.
 I am not sorry to see the collection go , in fact I am pleased because it is my contribution to recording the natural history and ecology of the Thanet coast something that underestimated.

Also I should mention they also accepted my entire collection of sea shells from the sandwich flats. That included wedge shells, necklace shells, spindle whelks, scallops and cowries.

Baleen plate from the Fin Whale stranding at Foreness Point in the autumn of 2015.

Porpoise vertebrae recovered from a carcase that had been  ravaged by common seals in the entrance of the River Stour at Pegwell Bay.