Rawai expat arrested for owning whale bones

Bart Simpson famously used to say, “Don’t have a cow, man!” But maybe, also don’t have a whale! In Rawai, a Frenchmen was arrested after he was discovered in possession of part of a whale skeleton. It turns out that owning whale bones violates the Wild Animal Protection Act.

The Phuket Express reports that the man was nabbed when officials received an anonymous tip. The tipster alerted the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources that a foreign man in Rawai somehow had whale skeletons that were probably illegal.

The department investigated and tracked down the man after being notified of the whale bones. On Monday, police arrested a 52 year old man from France for illegal skeleton possession. Arresting officers seized bones that made up the lower part of a baleen whale. (Ironic fact: baleen whales are also known as whalebone whales.)

Though the exact details of the bones and the size of the whale they came from were not disclosed, it’s worth noting that the largest living creature – blue whales – which can be 31 metres long, are part of the baleen whale family.

When questioned by authorities, the Frenchmen admitted that the whale bones were his. After confessing, he was arrested and transported to the Chalong Police Station to be prosecuted for his whale of a crime. No information was available about how or why he got the whale bones and what he was doing with them.