This is a wonderful blog for anyone interested in conservation or the ocean or whales (I love all three.) It is always a treat when the people who do these things write about them for layman; I may be a conservator but I am not involved with whale bones (though I almost was, my first college choice was oceanographer.) Enjoy! Kate
This blog entry allows a very visual insight into our conservation progress.
Following condition assessing and documenting the cetacean specimens, treatment plans were made (see previous blog ‘Treatment decisions, decisions, decisions‘). Hands-on conservation commenced with dry cleaning the specimens one by one, to remove over 100 years worth of accumulated dust. This was followed by the second treatment phase focusing on addressing degraded oil residues formed on the surface of the bones.
Along the way, a few discoveries were made…
1) Removing layers of dust with a vacuum and brush
2) Reducing degraded oil residues on bone surfaces with an ammonia solution
3 Reducing degraded oil residues on cartilage/bone areas
4 Removing miscellaneous foreign matter
5 Discoveries made during treatment
Early (honest) treatment evaluation
While we are finding that oils on the bone surface are efficiently being solubilised by treatment with ammonia, we do not know how far…
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