PICKERING BEACH, Del. --- The skull of a deceased juvenile whale that washed up along the Kent County coast last year was recovered on Friday at Pickering Beach by staffers with the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
The whale initially turned up at Port Mahon but was moved to Pickering Beach by the State of Delaware to naturally decompose into the bones that remain on the beach.
More than a year later, Dr. Jean Woods, the director of collections and curator of birds and mammals at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, and a crew of museum staffers arrived to collect the whale's skull, with the hopes of using it to help people learn about wildlife and the ocean.
"Think of all the people who come to the museum. They've never touched a whale, they've never seen a whale's skull. Whales are just so big that I think it's just so hard for people to imagine how big they really are," she said.
Before the skull can go on display, it needs to undergo procedures to make sure it does not have any living organisms inside of it and allow oil inside the bones to ooze out. That process could take a couple years, according to museum staff.
