We must save natural history curators from extinction

New acquisitions are the lifeblood of any museum collection, as they keep it fresh and relevant. This may seem ironic when it comes to collections of dead animals and plants – doubly so in an age of conservation and environmentalism. So what is the future for natural history collecting?

A natural history curator (if you can find one) will extol the usefulness of such collections in respect to not only recording a Victorian attitude to wildlife (which could unfairly be summarised as shoot it, stuff it, study it) but also as a vast resource for scientific study, not least important for taxonomy – the dictionary by which we name and make sense of the living organisms that make up the environment of which we are an integral part and depend on for our own survival. 

In adding to such collections, the curator faces a dilemma: how to collect legally and ethically for the better understanding of our world while projecting to the public the need for conservation and protection of our ecosystems.

National and university museums have the capacity and remit to focus on collecting from a pure research point of view. The dispersed national collection held in regional museums is a different matter.

Here, collecting has often relied on the donation, bequest and occasionally even purchase of collections compiled by amateur or semi-professional naturalists, along with some focused collecting dependent on the particular interest of the individual curator. 

Is it time to change this? If we are serious about the scientific value of collecting, should we not be collecting with more direction: for example, targeted collecting to best preserve DNA rather than a superficial resemblance to life? 

Should museum staff be training university students in the techniques of preservation, so that studies involving sampling of organisms result in material that can be donated to museums for future reference and research, rather than be discarded or left to moulder?

We still need to collect material for display as well as research, but we need to demonstrate more clearly the value of collections in store.

Finally, should the role of the natural historian be moving towards including activity best described as more of a social (natural) historian? Amateur naturalists may no longer collect butterflies, but they do record what they see, and often amass photographs of the species and habitats they encounter. 

Thirty years ago, 80% of local environmental records centres, collating and managing information on wildlife, originated and were based in museums. Today, probably 80% are outside museums. But using data on where wildlife occurs can bring to life dead exhibits.

Previously, when naturalists died there was a risk that the value of their collections might not be recognised by family members, and the opportunity for museums to acquire them be lost. Today, is there a vast reservoir of wildlife data stored as images on personal hard drives or websites that is at risk of disappearing into the digital ether as technology moves on? 

Should natural history curators be encouraging naturalists to consider depositing these archives with museums, and also recording information about the life of the naturalists themselves while it is possible to record and interview them? 

If we take such an approach perhaps, as a result, we could re-establish the importance of not only our historic collections of nature, but also re-establish the importance of the role of the natural history curator at a time when they have become almost an endangered species themselves.