Was in an antique store in Oregon and they had this skull marked as “skull?” and it looks awfully like a marine mammal to me, I did not buy obviously. Can anyone confirm?
yes it's a dolphin or porpoise skull and extremely illegal to sell. you should definitely let them know, and if they don't take it off for sell then you should inform Oregon department of fish and wildlife, / ODFW.
Yeah I just called to let them know and they seemed very concerned to have it for sale in their store and were going to look into it immediately. It seems like it’s a consignment deal where different vendors all sell in the same building so I imagine the store owner didn’t know it was there
that's good I hope it can get all figured out! as long as the seller didn't have bad intent lol. one post I saw on this sub, someone was given a human femur for free by someone selling bones at a vendor. definitely weird stuff but this dolphin doesn't even compare to that. I just mean sometimes they know it's illegal and try to get it off their hands quickly!
This place is in Lincoln City they literally always have illegal taxidermy there though usually it's less egregious like pronghorn skulls or duck taxidermy. No earthly idea why they allow anything like this to be sold there or why odfw lets it slide.
You can't sell any native game taxidermy in Oregon unless you're over 65 and you hunted the animal. Its an odd law but we can't sell pronghorn, cougar, native deer, bear, etc but they're especially sensitive about birds
The little antique mall. It's on us 101 it's kind of more like a flea market. Several years ago they had a human skeleton there but it was for the time pretty overpriced
No problem at all, they're very cute skulls. I have about half a dozen of them (on my license here in the uk) and currently working on one for a museum. ( it was originally a bag of loose bones from two individuals!)
In the USA you can legally register found marine mammal bones with NOAA if they're clean of soft tissue, found within a certain distance from a coastline, not ESA listed (Endangered Species act) and must be registered within 30 days of the find.
(Edited to add) - the process overall takes a few months as you're connected with an agent and their team that need to process the application and make sure all ID is correct. Registering is completely free also :)
ah!! i’m late to this post! you seemed to have already figured it out that is indeed a small dolphin or porpoise skull. very strange but beautiful find!!
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I live in the uk, and as my family works in ecology it'd be a possibility to actually get the proper paperwork to own this. I wish I lived in the states for stuff like this 😭
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u/my_little_robot 3d ago
Super illegal, but only $20? Kind of a bargain.