[Nhcoll-l] African Mammal Dilemma

[Kirchner-Smith, Mackenzie]

Hello everyone,

My museum is facing a bit of a storage dilemma that has come up very suddenly. Our offsite storage facility, which we rent, is going to be doubling in monthly price over the course of the next year, and only getting worse from there. Being a small museum with a limited budget, we can’t afford to stay in the facility so we will be working towards finding alternative solutions. Some of the objects currently being stored at our offsite facility are dozens of African mammal heads, mounted in the trophy style, including wildebeest, gemsbok , and rhinos just to name a few.

In addition to looking for new ways to store these, we are also hoping we can downsize the number of items being stored offsite. Our mission has shifted from a global focus to a more local one, and being located in California, these African mammals are not likely to ever be put on display at our museum. As far as we know, all these animals were collected by the museum in the 1970’s on a collecting trip to Africa or were donated to us throughout the years. For any other museums out there that have large African mammals, especially the highly endangered ones, what have you done to store/downsize your collection? We would prefer anything we can to be transferred over to another institution but our attempts to find interested institutions have not been fruitful so far. And if they are in very bad condition, what is the ethical and legal process for potentially disposing of such specimens?

Thank you for your insight, and if any institutions who see this email are interested in doing a transfer of any of these specimens, please reach out to me and I can provide a list of all that we have.

Mackenzie Kirchner-Smith
Museum Curator, Integrated Biology
San Bernardino County Museum
Phone: 909-798-8619
2024 Orange Tree Lane
Redlands, CA, 92374

[cid:image001.png at 01D9C072.506F5AA0]<http://www.sbcounty.gov/>

Our job is to create a county in which those who reside and invest can prosper and achieve well-being.
www.SBCounty.gov<http://www.sbcounty.gov/>

[cid:image002.png at 01D9C072.506F5AA0]<https://twitter.com/SBCountyMuseum> [cid:image003.png at 01D9C072.506F5AA0] <https://www.facebook.com/SBCMuseum>  [cid:image004.png at 01D9C072.506F5AA0] <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC22Zo-yENy0uF29M7s51vxw>  [cid:image005.png at 01D9C072.506F5AA0] <https://www.instagram.com/sanbernardinocountymuseum>

San Bernardino County Museum acknowledges that the land on which our facilities are sited is the ancestral and unceded territory of the Maara’yam, commonly referred to as the Serrano people, which, in the contemporary era, are represented by two federally‐recognized tribes: the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and Morongo Band of Mission Indians. We also acknowledge that in the historic era other tribal communities and European settlers intersected with Serrano peoples in these spaces.  Our histories and stories are intertwined in this space, and by sharing them in culturally‐appropriate ways and co-stewarding collections, we hope to honor and celebrate our indigenous neighbors and partners. We also seek to offer an accurate, clear and thorough picture of this region’s complicated past and create a shared vision for the future that is mutually‐beneficial and respectful to all.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 7949 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 831 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 688 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1387 bytes
Desc: image004.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2498 bytes
Desc: image005.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20230727/452a0e09/attachment-0004.png>