[Nhcoll-l] EXT : The Dangerous Museum

[Monaghan, Nigel]

Try carrying out taxidermy on a not-dead bear in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s...



The local zoo polar bear was euthanased and transported to the museum and left overnight awaiting taxidermy. Confusion and rumours had stories of a recovering bear tearing the museum apart, post-mortem death rattle as gases escaped have been blamed for noises that suggested the animal was still alive.



Various versions of this local legend have been in circulation, for one of the more reliable, try the museum website at: http://www.nmni.com/um/News/Peter-the-Polar-Bear-warmly-welcomed-back-to-Ulste



or the more lurid http://www.factotum.org.uk/citywide/articles/bears.html



Nigel



Mr Nigel T. Monaghan,
Keeper,
Natural History Division,
National Museum of Ireland,
Merrion Street,
Dublin 2,
IRELAND
________________________________
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] on behalf of Callomon,Paul [prc44 at drexel.edu]
Sent: 11 December 2013 19:26
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] EXT : The Dangerous Museum

Way, WAY too much information there if you ask me…

PC

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Krista Fahy
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 2:16 PM
To: dinoceras at juno.com; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] EXT : The Dangerous Museum

Hi Chris,

Working alone in the Vertebrate Department one afternoon, I see the Cal Fish and Wildlife truck pull with a large road kill mountain lion. After getting the specimen tagged and weighed I was faced with getting the 130lb animal into our walk in freezer where we typically hang animals of that size/shape so they don’t freeze to the floor. After jerry-rigging a harness for the cat I manage to hoist the animal up and just finish tying it off to the post underneath when the entire rigging gives way and pins me underneath the animal and on top of the assorted marine mammal carcasses bagged below. Shouting (actually shrieking a bit) to no one in particular, I finally wriggle out while suffering many dolphin snouts to the behind. I manage to re-secure the animal and get myself cleaned off since the head was totally smashed and bloody.  Slightly traumatized, I returned to my desk and resumed whatever I was working on when 20 minutes later I start to get a little itchy. Then a lot itchy. ACK! I was crawling with fleas and several ticks happy to have found a new warm host.  Needless to say clothes were flying and I was lucky to be working in the lab alone.

Krista

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Krista A. Fahy, Ph.D.
Associate Curator of Vertebrate Zoology
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
2559 Puesta Del Sol Road, Santa Barbara CA 93105
(p) 805 682 4711 x155 | (f) 805 569 3170
          Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/sbmnh>     Webpage<http://www.sbnature.org/>     Collections<http://www.sbcollections.org/>



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