A
New Look at North American Wildlife
Biodiversity is revealed in a new hall in the Museum of Natural History
by Kathryn M. Duda
For the first time in its long history, the Hall of North American Mammals has
been thoroughly renovated, and it reopened November 16, 1995, as the Hall of North
American Wildlife--a name that reflects the hall's new direction in presenting the
vast biodiversity of the North American continent. Known for nearly nine decades simply
as Mammal Hall, this popular area on the second floor of the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History now shows North American mammals as they co-exist with other animals, plants,
insects and geographical features in their individual ecosystems.
The renovation
marks the second phase of the museum's long-range plan to revitalize the permanent
life science exhibits. The first phase was completed in 1993 with the opening of the
adjacent Hall of African Wildlife.
The next major renovation project is the
ALCOA Hall of Native Americans, which was begun in July of 1995 on the museum's third
floor, next to Polar World. That hall is scheduled to open in the summer of 1997,
according to James E. King, director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. King
says the final project, the renovation of Dinosaur Hall, also was started in 1995
and is due for completion in 1998. The focal point of the new Hall of North American
Wildlife is the Alaskan brown bear diorama, in which a predatory male bear is in the
center of the exhibit hall--outside the glass that encloses the other bears in the
group. From atop a large boulder, he approaches a female and her three cubs, who are
feasting on fresh salmon near a stream on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The mother has turned
to challenge the unwanted male, which has probably approached to harm or kill the
cubs. Placing part of the diorama outside the glass, a technique used also in the
Hall of African Wildlife, allows visitors to become more involved in the exhibit.
The Alaskan brown bear diorama reveals the hall's new focus on biodiversity
and environmental accuracy. In the original 1918 diorama all five bears were grouped
together against a background mural that had faded over time. In redesigning the diorama,
museum staff separated the male bear from the others, allowing for a more realistic
distance between them. Also, the type of salmon being enjoyed by the young bears in
the original diorama was king salmon, which is not found in the stream depicted here.
In the new exhibit, the cubs nibble on a red salmon, which is common to the area.
Two museum staff members travelled to Kodiak Island, where these animals are
found, to study, photograph and collect vegetation for the exhibit. These researchers
were Patrick Martin, assistant chairman in the Section of Exhibit Design and Production,
who oversaw the redesign of the hall, and plant preparator Abbey Anderson. The information
and specimens gleaned from their trip enabled them to arrange the bears, rocks, plants
and other small animals in more realistic positions, and to create a panorama that
more accurately depicts the Kodiak Island environment. The highly realistic new background
was painted by Jerome P. and Elma T. Connelly, the same artists who painted the murals
in the elk exhibit and in the Hall of African Wildlife.
The bears are the
center of attention in this diorama, but other Kodiak Island animals appear as well,
including a Kingfisher, a short-tailed weasel, a red salmon and Glaucous-winged Gulls.
Native plants include salmonberry bushes, fireweed (Alaska's state flower), and three
types of grasses. High above the male bear and outside the glass, a gull is poised
in flight, and sounds of gulls and rushing water can be heard.
Among the many
plants and animals added to other exhibits in the new hall are a North American pika,
a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, a fritillary and a tiger beetle, which were added to the
Fannin Sheep diorama as examples of birds and insects that survive in rugged mountain
regions. Representing a warmer environment is the jaguar group, supplemented with
a delicate orchid and moss.
Updated lighting adds to the look of the hall
as well. Pink lighting in the caribou exhibit now shows visitors the weak sunlight
in extreme northern winters, and flexible lighting throughout the hall simulates the
season and time of day depicted. The previous incandescent light bulbs have been supplemented
with warm and cool fluorescents and a string of track lighting.
These changes
allow the museum to depict more accurately the great variety in the animal and plant
life, climate and terrain of North America. This continent includes ecosystems ranging
from the tundra of northern Alaska and the alpine region of the Rocky Mountains, to
the coniferous forest of the northern U.S. and Canada, the deciduous forest of the
eastern U.S., the grasslands of the Great Plains, and the deserts of southwestern
U.S. and Mexico.
"Many of the impressive mammals [displayed in the hall]
were acquired and donated to the museum by former benefactors and showcased as Ôtrophies,'
with little emphasis on the environments in which they lived," says Duane A.
Schlitter, chairman of life sciences at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Sue
McLaren, collections manager in the Section of Mammals, points out that the few supplemental
items that were included in the original mammal dioramas were not always apparent
to the casual observer.
"In many cases, it was an animal and window dressing,"
says McLaren of the previous mammal exhibits, which were excellent by the standards
of a bygone era, but not scientifically complete. With the new emphasis on biodiversity,
however, comes a greater focus on the various elements in each diorama. While the
original labels emphasized the hunter and expedition that collected the specimens,
the new labels instead point out the physical and behavioral characteristics of the
animals, the regions where they're found, and pertinent botanical and geographical
features. An educational area in the new hall helps visitors explore two topics that
are difficult or impossible to address through dioramas: animal classification and
mating. Through a question-and-answer format, visitors use the same criteria scientists
use to classify plants and animals. Three video programs on mating interpret the roles
of males and females, how mates are chosen, and how the physical characteristics of
each gender ensure that reproduction will continue. Videos and computer programs can
address supplemental topics, but the museum staff has no plans to replace any part
of an exhibit with technology. Nothing on screen, in fact, can replace the experience
of standing before a natural history diorama, particularly those of exceptional quality
like the ones in the Hall of North American Wildlife. Visitors seeing the dioramas
in 1996 feel the same thrill that early 20th-century museum visitors felt when faced
with the hulking Alaskan brown bear, or the majestic bald eagle--it's an experience
that cannot be replaced by an electronic facsimile.
"There could never
be a video created that would give me the same satisfaction as looking at the Mona
Lisa in person," says Duane Schlitter, chairman of life sciences at the Museum
of Natural History. "It's the real thing, and the same thing applies to natural
history museums. A diorama is a moment in time captured, where you can study a scene
in detail and see new things every time you look at it. "You'll never get the
director of an art museum to say, ÔLet's get rid of all the paintings, because we have
videos that people can look at instead.' Likewise, videos can never replace a natural
history diorama."
A Historical Perspective
This exhibit hall
has come a long way since the first mammal was added to the museum's collections in
1895. For the first three decades of the museum's life, African mammals occupied a
considerable portion of what was then known as the Gallery of Mammals, or Mammal Hall,
"almost entirely composed of species donated by a liberal and public-spirited
friend of our institution, Mr. Childs Frick, Honorary Curator of Mammalogy of the
Carnegie Museum," noted then-museum director Andrey Avinoff in a 1927 Carnegie
Magazine. The son of Henry Clay Frick, Childs was responsible for collecting and donating
most of the museum's African mammals exhibited in the museum.
Around 1930,
however, an effort was made to acquire more North American mammals for exhibit, and
a booklet published that year about the Carnegie Institute and Library refers to the
preparation of a series of groups showing North American mammals. Already installed
at that time were the Alaskan brown bear, the black bear, the white- tailed deer of
Pennsylvania, the grey fox and opossum, the white mountain sheep and the pronghorn
antelope. By then the museum's mammal collection already numbered 6,000 and represented
nearly 2,000 species. The North American collection grew steadily over the next 60
years until, in 1993, the African mammals were placed in their own new hall with other
forms of wildlife from the same continent. The reopened Hall of North American Wildlife
now contains scores of wildlife species, divided into 20 groups of animals. Many of
the specimens are the work of the renowned Remi Santens, chief taxidermist at the
museum from 1906 until his retirement in 1939. Also represented in the hall are subsequent
taxidermists Harold Clement, who followed Santens and was trained by him, and Otto
Epping. Many of the background murals were painted by Ottmar von Fuerher, who served
the museum from 1922 through 1965. The mammals shown in the Hall of North American
Wildlife are only a part of the 115,000 specimens contained in the Section of Mammals'
research collection. The mammal collection is now strongest in North American material
and contains one of the three best collections in the United States of eastern North
American mammals. The collection of mammals of Pennsylvania and adjacent areas is
the best in the world, and collections from the eastern Arctic are the best of any
United States museum.
The hall's dioramas, which represent nearly 100 years
of acquisitions, are now visually unified by the addition of carpeting, cedar paneling,
and decorative moulding that complements the ceiling architecture. The revitalization
of the Hall of North American Wildlife is a significant accomplishment for the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History, and it was made possible by a generous gift from the Richard
King Mellon Foundation, with additional support from The George Davidson Family and
the International Wildlife Fund. Coupled with the adjacent and still new Hall of African
Wildlife, it gives the public a dramatic new experience on the museum's second floor.
Kathryn M. Duda is associate editor of Carnegie Magazine.
Collecting
at Kodiak Island - A sidebar
The two weeks that Patrick Martin, assistant
chairman in the Section of Exhibit Design and Production, and plant preparator Abbey
Anderson spent in Alaska doing research for the Alaskan brown bear diorama were immensely
helpful in preparing the exhibit, but not without frustrations.
One of their
goals was to collect native plants for use in the exhibit, but the plant preparation
was time-consuming and sometimes difficult. As soon as the plants were gathered, they
were plunged into a glycerine-based preservative, which Martin and Anderson were using
for the first time.
"As the grasses dried, the blades curled inward instead
of remaining flat," Martin recalls. "So we pressed each individual blade
of grass with an iron."
Once the plants had arrived in Pittsburgh, they
were dried, starched and painted, having lost their color during the drying process.
Plants with wider leaves, such as salmonberry foliage, do not preserve well for display.
Martin and Anderson instead took plaster casts of these plants while in Alaska, and
recreated them in vinyl for the exhibit. Martin also took a mold of a red salmon,
from which he created the epoxy salmon in the exhibit.
Another goal of their
expedition was to photograph Kodiak Island so that a panoramic mural could be painted
in the diorama. But fog hampered their efforts.
"Once we chose an area
to photograph," Martin says, "we had to wait for a clear day. Our motel
was thirty miles away from the site, and we commuted for two weeks before we could
get a clear photo."
The Hall of North American Wildlife is dedicated
to the memory of Lt. Gen. and Mrs. Richard King Mellon in honor of their strong commitment
to conservation and preservation. from dedicatory plaque