[Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum

[Ann Pinzl]

I too have been enjoying these stories, except we should all be in one place and 
sharing our war stories this over some beverages.  I would also like to add that there 
is some good writing (e.g. PC's below) out there.  Seems, though, most of the stories 
have been courtesy of the zoologically oriented NHCOLLers.  But they  have not cornered 
the market.  I might suggest that you check out TROPICAL PLANT COLLECTING - FROM THE 
FIELD TO THE INTERNET, 2011, Scott. A. Mori, Amy Berkov, Carol. A. Gracie and Edmund F. 
Hecklau, eds.-  Chapter 3,  Tips for Tropical Biologists, in particular.  Most of the 
accounts (some nice photos too) are from botanists - the local nasty creatures get 
anyone and everyone.
Ann

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dee Stubbs-Lee" <Dee.Stubbs-Lee at nbm-mnb.ca>
To: "Callomon,Paul" <prc44 at drexel.edu>; <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum


Oh my! I've been enjoying this entertaining thread today.


Dee Stubbs-Lee, CAPC, MA
Conservator / Restauratrice
New Brunswick Museum/
Musée du Nouveau-Brunswick
277 Douglas Avenue
Saint John, New Brunswick
E2K 1E5
Canada
(506)643-2341






-----Original Message-----
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On 
Behalf Of Callomon,Paul
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 4:48 PM
To: 'nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu'
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum

Not strictly scientific but: at the school I helped to run in Osaka, Japan, there was 
one summer a familiar, sickly smell around the entrance. It got to the point that 
people were not coming in, so we investigated. From the roof, with a pair of 
binoculars, we spotted a cat with acute vitality deficiency in the foot-wide gap 
between our building and the next one. There was no way to get in there, and by that 
point (Osaka is hot and humid in summer) Tiddles was inflating and hosting an 
impressive invertebrate subfauna, so volunteers would have been few anyway.
The answer? The fire hose. We dragged it out and pointed it into the gap. Worked a 
treat. Kitty blew up like a grass hut in a typhoon, and soon there was no sign of 
him/her/it between the buildings. However: when you train as a policeman, you learn 
that before you discharge a firearm you should check what's behind your target in case 
you miss. We had neglected to do that, and our liquidized puddy tat was now adorning 
the sidewalk on the other side of the building - and the glistening flank, roof and 
windows of a very expensive automobile (whose resale value was now in single digits).

PC

-----Original Message-----
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On 
Behalf Of Harding, Deborah
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 3:38 PM
To: 'nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu'
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum


Back in the mid-70s, the then-Florida State Museum was offered the carcass of a large 
male lion that had died in a roadside zoo. Initially they worked on skinning it in the 
one large workspace with little traffic--right in front of the air intake for the air 
conditioning unit. The museum was filled with the lovely combined odor of male lion and 
decomposition.

There was no dermestid colony at the museum, so someone came up with the grand idea of 
letting wild insects take care of it on the roof of the University of Florida Life 
Sciences building, right next door. That went fine for a few days, until the wind 
picked up, and showered the passers-by on the sidewalk below with a rain of maggots.

Great stories, everybody! The chairman of our department also did some forensic work, 
so I've other lovely stories, including the maggots-nothing-would-kill in the lab, but 
I think those are just a little too yucky.

Deborah Harding
Collection Manager
Section of Anthropology
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
harding at carnegiemnh.org
412-665-2608

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