Recent acquisitions include mounted Peruvian birds received from the Smithsonian Institution, unprepared birds from the Australian National Museum, and many hundreds of other donations of unprepared birds from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife and rehabilitation agencies in the states of Alaska, Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, and Texas. Undoubtedly the biggest new addition to the Vertebrate Museum is the skeleton of a twenty-five foot minke whale. The skeleton is the gift of Portland State University. A dead adult female whale weighing more than 10 tons washed up on the shores of the state of Washington in 1985. Dr. Debbie Duffield, Director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network and Professor of Biology at Portland State, salvaged the carcass and orchestrated the monumental task of cleaning its skeleton.
Federal law prohibits commerce both of endangered species and of marine mammals.
Thus, such a specimen could not be purchased at any price. The Vertebrate Museum includes countless treasures that have taken generations to accrue. While no single specimen can be considered to overshadow all others, our new whale skeleton is certainly one of the most spectacular specimens we have, both because of its size and because it is the only whale skeleton New Mexicans are likely ever to see. Collectors have some, but most no longer exist. For most of us at the time, the face value of a nickel outweighed its potential worth as a collector's item sometime in the distant future.