A Sowerby's Beaked Whale from Nordfjord arriving at Bergen Museum in 1901.
(Photo: The Photo Collection, UiB)

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History

All the whale skeletons exhibited in the Natural History Collections were collected in a time period when industrial whaling was established along the Norwegian coast. At the end of the 19th century there were several whaling stations along the coast of Hordaland. Most of the skeletons in the collections originate from these stations in the late 19th century/early 20th century. 

Some of the whales were donated to the museum by private businessmen, whereas others were bought to make the collection as complete as possible. Actually, a higher number of specimens than those found in the collections today were collected; these were used in trade with other museums in order to complete the collections.

The Bergen whale collection is highly valuable because of the great number of species represented. Apart from the minke whale which is still hunted in Norwegian waters, all species are presently protected. Nowadays, several species are very rare. It would therefore be hard to build a similar collection of whales today.