Whale bones can't stay in P.E.I.: museum official

Prince Edward Island does not have the resources to keep and display a blue whale skeleton that will instead go to British Columbia, says the director of the provincial museum foundation.

'It's always disappointing when you can't keep your heritage at home.' — David Keenlyside, P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation

The whale washed ashore near Tignish in western P.E.I. in 1987 and was buried nearby. Representatives of a new biodiversity centre at the University of British Columbia recently exhumed part of the whale to assess its condition. They will return in the spring to complete the exhumation and prepare the bones for shipping to the west coast.

There's no place on the Island to display such a large mammal, David Keenlyside, director of the P.E.I Museum and Heritage Foundation, told CBC News Tuesday.
 
"It's always disappointing when you can't keep your heritage at home," he said.

"But you can't save everything, and you just have to plan for these things. It's a logistic challenge, for sure, given the weight and size of it. I'm just happy that it found a good home."

Although the province has no immediate plans for a provincial heritage museum, Keenlyside said he'd like to see the government create a facility capable of displaying the bones of large mammals.