Nancy Haugen, Public Use Specialist, assists with bird identification during the tour of Sherburne NWR for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. - FWS photo by Anne Sittauer

Sherburne NWR hosted a field trip, May 22, for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections  (SPNHC) 2007 Annual Meeting, “Building for the Future: Museums of the 21st Century,” held in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A group of 26 natural history museum professionals from 6 different countries; Ecuador, Peru, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Netherlands, as well as the U.S., participated in this field trip.

Jeanne Holler, refuge biologist, presented the Refuge as a living natural history “museum,” where people can experience the natural world by immersion and return to see changes through the seasons and over the years. These changes, she explained, occur both naturally and as a result of management.

Holler talked about common issues the refuge shares with museums and natural history collections that are housed in buildings. These issues included visitation; accessibility; the different levels of interpretation and opportunities provided for the public to experience the refuge natural history “collection” of habitats, plants and animals; and how refuge staff maintain and care for the living “museum” collection (i.e., management strategies).

While in the field, Holler also discussed challenges to refuge management such as urbanization and how, like other museum collections, not all visitors appreciate it, as demonstrated by the discovery of spent clay pigeons on one of the sites we visited.

This field trip was one of two conference trips that were focused on natural history outside the collections housed in a building environment. SPNHC has approximately 600 members, representing 21 countries and consisting of professional museum specialists such as curators, collections managers, conservators, preparators, and database administrators.  The Society is unique among natural history professional organizations because of its international scope and multidisciplinary approach to collections management and care.