\n Cordelia Slaughter, a passionate beachcomber from Bexhill, was walking along Galley Hill on Saturday morning (December 6) when she spotted the skull \u201chigh up\u201d on the beach.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I got really close that I suddenly realised what it was,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The skull of what looks to have been a dolphin or porpoise was found by Galley Hill (Image: Cordelia Slaughter)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was covered in the remains of its flesh.\n<\/p>\n
\n “My thought was, I need to get this off the beach in case dog walkers come along with dogs off the lead \u2013 before they know it their dog will be eating the rotting flesh off this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n With difficulty, Cordelia heaved the large skull into a bag and handed it in to a local coastal officer.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI struggled because it was so heavy,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cordelia says the skull is \u201cone of the most unusual things I have found\u201d. Although she has found several dead mammals on the beach over the years, including seals, she has never found a head on its own.\n<\/p>\n
\n She has speculated that the creature, which looks either to have been a dolphin or porpoise, may have been decapitated by a boat.\n<\/p>\n
\n The beachcomber has also reported her find to the Sussex Dolphin Project.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cordelia began beachcombing during the pandemic.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAt the time of covid when we could only go to open spaces, I would take myself down to the beach,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI thought, ‘this is pretty boring’. Then I started noticing the amount of rubbish, so I decided to make some use of my walks by picking things up and it became an obsession.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI started taking things home and putting them it into categories and photographing them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis time of year is most exciting. The full moon and heavy seas mean that more unusual things wash up and when it has been raining, a lot more washes up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Cordelia on the beach (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n Sometimes Cordelia finds items which seem to have entered the sea during container spills.\n<\/p>\n
\n She has found a number of Lidl water bottles which came from a 2022 cargo spill as well as finding several paint rollers \u2013 which she thinks must also have come from a cargo spill.\n<\/p>\n
\n She once found three containers of soda lime, used by divers in rebreathers\u00a0to absorb exhaled carbon dioxide.\n<\/p>\n
\n After contacting the Essex-based manufacturers, the company used the containers\u2019 lot numbers to track down the divers they had supplied the soda lime to and request that they stop disposing of the products in the sea.\n<\/p>\n
\n She volunteers for Strandliners, a Sussex-based voluntary organisation which surveys beaches for plastic pollution and records the data for organisations.\n<\/p>\n