Fire and Water

Fire is a tricky beast. Mature jack pines rely on its heat to prompt their serotinous cones to open and simply would not reproduce without such an environmental trigger. Natural fires in general are wildly revitalizing for a variety of forests, watersheds, and soil and equally as significant, the process of early humans learning to harness the power of fire proved revolutionary. Despite fire's wonderful power, flames leave behind little promise after reducing valuable natural history specimens to soot and ashes.

Making global news recently has been the near total loss of specimens at the National Museum of Brazil, when it was consumed by flames early this month. The museum had been the oldest scientific institution in its country, surviving for 200 years with a collection grown to approximately 20 million objects. The collection included irreplaceable specimens--"Luisa," the oldest human fossil discovered in the Americas, one of the world's largest meteorites, anthropological artifacts from South America's vanishing indigenous groups, and other tangible records of cultural heritage. Before the fire, it was truly a great repository, informing the public of the vast wonders of the world around us. 

Cries to better safeguard such specimens in Brazil were heard for years, even decades, and continuously silenced by a lack of resources. The National Museum of Brazil is certainly not alone in its loss, however. In 2016, India's National Museum of Natural History was notoriously destroyed by fire as well, and other collections around the world have been decimated by natural forces since museums existed as institutions. No tangible collection is everlasting, and certainly not so in the face of the incredible natural forces such as fire or water. While the Cable Natural History Museum has thus far escaped flames, it has experienced loss. 

Specimens damaged by water during a collapsed
roof in the spring of 2005.

Over a decade ago, the Museum existed in a different building than that of today. An early spring roof collapse in 2005 drenched its contents with water and debris, irreversibly damaging a number of specimens. While damages were not entirely catastrophic--we lost no rare or extinct individuals--we did lose part of our record of the area's natural history. Mammal and bird mounts fell apart at the touch, and archival cases holding entomology specimens likewise crumbled. The Museum suffered--but also adapted, improved, and continued on. 

Humans are resilient creatures and our work can be too. Museums the world over are filled with people arguably as strong as any disaster that may come their way, and each one of us passionately seeks to protect our collections into the infinite future. Situations like that which happened at the National Museum of Brazil are tragic, but inspire us to become better stewards of our records of the world around us.