CROWN WAS GIVEN RIGHTS BY STATUTE.

IN 1324, a statute was passed which gave the Crown qualified rights to cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins and porpoises stranded on, or caught in the waters of England and Wales. Similar rights were claimed for the Crown of Scotland. The animals were described as Fishes Royal.

In 1913, by agreement with the then Board of Trade, these rights were transferred to the Natural History Museum in London, at that time known as the British Museum (Natural History). Since then, in monitoring cetacean strandings, more than 8,000 animals have been recorded, some of the species being new to British waters. Initially, information was stored on a card index. Latterly, information is collated and entered on computer. The resulting database is used to produce distribution maps and analyse information about the biology and ecology of the different species. The National Stranded Whale Recording Scheme is now the centre of a co-ordinated investigation, funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, into the biology and ecology of cetacean populations around the British Isles.