New natural history galleries in Auckland

Forest and Bird, Issue 292, 1 May 1999, Page 10

New natural history galleries in Auckland

—Gordon EIl.

new kind of museum ‘experience’ featuring ecological displays with specimens in their natural environment is emerging at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Four new galleries are already open with a fifth, about Maori and their knowledge of natural history, still in preparation. The new displays are presented in galleries devoted to New Zealand’s origins, life on land, ocean life and human impacts.

In the first, giant dinosaurs stand above fossil birds, animals and plants; in the land gallery ecosystems, based on Auckland region and beyond, display animals and plants in their natural settings; the oceans include beaches and underwater reef systems; the human impacts feature the onslaught of introduced animals and plants, with a conservation perspective. Among the environments is the kauri forest, represented by a cast

from a kauri tree which stands four-storeys high in an old stairwell, with a 24-hour cycle of forest life presented every eight minutes. A South Island mountain scree slope and life in a beech forest are also parts of the land gallery. A wetland is modelled on the Forest and Bird Society’s Matuku Reserve at Te Henga, West Auckland (see Branching Out this issue). In the oceans gallery, a mangrove forest and an open beach are reproduced as the setting for

common shells, appropriate birds and beach life. Also among the marine collections are reproductions of shore platforms and cliff faces showing the environment of the inner harbour, complemented with live specimens in rock pools including one covered by glass over which visitors walk. A reproduction of an underwater cliff at the Poor Knights Islands is the background setting for oceandwelling species of fish and plants. A librarian runs a resource centre within the galleries, so people can make enquiries about things they have found, utilising library books, computers and type specimens. The new natural history galleries are part of the total refurbishment of Auckland War Memorial Museum which is due for completion by the year 2000. Galleries are designed to be ‘collections rich; each featuring a broad range of specimens. When reconstruction is complete it is expected the museum will present a greater area of galleries

than Te Papa.