Man caught stealing Whale teeth.

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Man caught trying to steal teeth of beached whale on Ore. Coast

02:10 PM MST on Wednesday, January 2, 2008

By KGW Staff

A female sperm whale washed up on the Oregon Coast Monday and the next day when researchers arrived, they caught a man trying to steal the jaw and teeth, a federal offense.



Watch KGW report

The researchers said they saw the man chopping away at the mammal’s lower jaw and then running off. The teeth can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market.



The researchers chased the man down and caught him in the woods near Ecola State Park because he had sprained his ankle.



"When we confronted him, he admitted to taking part of the jaw and he readily gave it back to us without any problem, said Dr. Nelio Barros, a PSU Marine Biologist.



The whale, that Barros said appeared to be malnourished, had washed ashore just south of Indian Beach. It was decomposing and measured about 36 feet long.



Governed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, sperm whales are a protected species.



"A lot of these things are valuable for research and it's best to recover as much as we can, Barros said.



A sperm whale’s teeth average five to seven inches in length and weigh up to two pounds each.



“The teeth of sperm whale are nice and big and a lot of people may want to have that in their collection, but it is really against the law to do that," Barros added.



This particular whale’s jaw, which was still missing some teeth, will be taken to Portland State University where marine biologists will try to determine why it died.



Meantime, the National Marine Fisheries Service will investigate the poaching case. The suspect’s name has not yet been released, but he could face criminal charges.