In 1923, Field Museum zoologist Wilfred Osgood traveled to Southern Chile and returned with a species previously unknown to science, a small marsupial he called the Chilean shrew opossum. Osgood believed it might be the ”missing link” between Australian marsupials, including the kangaroo, and those that flourished in parts of South America.
The theory intrigued zoologists for years, not the least because the shrew opossum was so rare. Only a few additional specimens were found until 1984. That was when another curator from the Field Museum, Bruce Patterson, returned to Osgood`s Chilean stomping grounds. Patterson and his colleagues had many things in mind on this expedition, including Chilean shrew opossums. To their great surprise, they captured 23 of them.
The story proved what the zoologists already knew-that things change in nature, and populations are ever in flux. For reasons that remain mysterious, the Chilean opossum shrew appears to be making a substantial comeback (though it is not the missing link Osgood hoped for). ”Naturally,” says Patterson,
”most changes that are happening aren`t nearly this happy.”
Happy or dismal, stories about the natural world are the focus of the newest permanent exhibition at the Field Museum. ”Messages From the Wilderness,” which opens Saturday, represents the most recent phase in the Field`s long-term effort to update the entire museum.
”Messages” focuses on the museum`s collections of North and South American mammals, and much of it will be familiar to people who have been to the museum before. The 18 dioramas containing mounts (stuffed animals) are among the museum`s oldest and most honored icons and were made in the 1920s, some even earlier. What is new are the labels, which have been rewritten, and audio-visual material that is entirely modern. Interactive devices employ computers that will encourage children and adults to spend more time in this hall than they used to.
”Messages From the Wilderness” follows last year`s opening of ”Into the Wild,” featuring assorted highlights from the museum`s zoological collections. In both exhibitions, mounts and dioramas are largely unchanged from what must have been a golden age of taxidermy many decades ago. What has changed are the ideas, or messages, that these animals represent.
For years after the Field Museum was founded in 1893, large mammals were collected partly for scientific reasons, but also on expeditions funded by wealthy Chicagoans who enjoyed the big-game aspects of the hunt. In the tradition of trophy-keeping, mammal galleries at this and other museums offered visitors little interpretation beyond what species it was and where it was caught.
Today, the museum is determined to use its collection more intensively for educational purposes. In ”Messages From the Wilderness,” striking images of handsome animals initiate a steady (not shrill) discourse on ”ecosystems” and the importance of protecting natural habitats.
Only recently have museums become comfortable with the inevitable political impact of such messages. Nevertheless, this is but one example of changes at the Field to make it a more inquisitive, if sometimes
controversial, place-not just of objects but of ideas as well.
In the past, the Field Museum was known principally for the vastness of its collections and the power of Chicagoans (like kings and princes with museums of their own) to assemble them. Today, the Field remains world-famous because it stores hundreds of thousands of specimens (zoological, botanical, cultural and in other fields) indispensable to scholarly study.
But the objective of the Field Museum since the arrival in 1986 of Michael Spock, vice president for public programs, has been to do more to explain the natural and anthropological worlds represented by these collections.
While the museum of the past created lifelike creatures in pristine settings, many of the species included now are endangered and one (the Mexican grizzly bear) is extinct. The stunning irony is that while the dioramas have been preserved beautifully over the years, the scenes they depict have suffered substantially.
The Field Museum is now committed to answering the question: What is happening?
In one case, the American moose diorama was installed in 1916, when this museum occupied the building that is now the Museum of Science and Industry. These specimens were hunted (or ”collected”) on Alaska`s Kenai Peninsula by the taxidermist, who helped create a river scene with the timeless impact of a major painting in the Art Institute.
The change in the modern museum is in interpretation. For 75 years, visitors to the museum have witnessed these moose eating sapling branches of aspens, willows and beeches. Added to the scene is an explanation of the ecosystem-or complex relationships between plants and animals. In a scene such as this, the growth of edible foliage depends upon periodic grass fires to suppress larger forest growth. And the advent of civilization too close to moose territory means that natural fires are not occurring, putting inevitable pressure on moose populations.
Another diorama in ”Messages” is the one with American bison, specimens that were collected in 1911 and mounted to re-create upland Montana plains where these buffalo once roamed by the tens of thousands. One new aspect of this old scene is a nearby video screen depicting buffalo hunts in the late 1800s that nearly exterminated the species.
While we know the basic story of these slaughters for sport, a new assertion in this exhibition is that the U.S. government had a definite but perverse understanding that an ecosystem was at work on the Plains. ”They knew that if the buffalo were gone, Indians who depended on them would be easier to subdue,” said Francie Muraski, one of the developers of
”Messages.”
Many other techniques are being used to get across the idea that ecosystems are ever-changing. Along with the polar bears are graphics describing a food chain on the Arctic ice that starts with microscopic diatoms and includes fish, seals and other animals that depend upon one another in many ways. If one link were removed, all species in this fragile environment could be affected.
In the diorama with elk depicted in Washington`s Olympic National Forest, an important message is that this subspecies (called ”Roosevelt” elk)
flourishes in natural clearings in the rain forest, where sunlight and edible plants are available. These clearings occur where trees have grown, died and fallen. The conclusion is that old-growth rainforests are essential not just to spotted owls but also to a variety of species for a variety of complex reasons.
Connected to the elk diorama is a brief explanation of alternatives to the destruction of ancient forests. Strategies for ”sustainable”
development-such as selective logging instead of clearcutting-remind us that human beings can interact with the environment without ruining it. ”We can become positive members of the ecosystem when we realize that what is good for the wilderness is actually good for ourselves as well,” said Debra Moskovits, project director of the new exhibition.
Museum developers know that some of what they say is controversial, but they are unapologetic in making the case for environmentalism. Among their most compelling reasons is the preservation of ”biodiversity,” or the multitude of flora and fauna that depend on one another in the environment.
The Field Museum understands the story of natural ecosystems-and their changes-very well. Yet the people who design exhibits also know that scenarios of doom do little to attract people to the museum, where the public prefers life, and color, and activity.
Fortunately, the museum has evolved during 100 years into a place of both worlds-ideal images of the unspoiled wild along with stark glimpses of the unvarnished truth.
The challenge faced by the museum in ”Messages from the Wilderness” was to strike a balance between the irresistible beauty of exotic animals and the depressing prospect of their disappearance. The ultimate success of the exhibition will take more time to judge.
”The vignettes of nature tend to look perfect,” says exhibit developer Barbara Becker. ”But what we are trying to impart is not a false sense of security, but a sense of urgency.”
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”Messages from the Wilderness” opens Saturday at the Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. It opens simultaneously with the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Wildlife Research Station, a study center with books, periodicals, videos and other learning materials for visitors to investigate wildlife around the world. The Rice center emulates a metal-roofed science outpost on the Serengeti in Africa. Outside its veranda are a number of the museum`s African mammal mounts, arguably some of the museum`s best.
The exhibition and wildlife stations are open during regular museum hours, which are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission to the museum is $4 for adults, $2.50 for children (3-17), seniors (65 or older) and students (with valid school ID); and free on Thursdays. For information, call 312-922-9410.
