We’re most familiar with the carefully curated, public-facing galleries of museums filled with perfect taxidermy arranged in lifelike poses. But behind the scenes, there's much, much more going on.
The "menagerie" in the backrooms of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Photo: RNZ / Claire Concannon
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In the backrooms of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, there’s a “menagerie,” according to land vertebrate collection curator Dr Matt Rayner. A horse’s head and stuffed peacocks sit on a work bench, and the corridor is filled with large specimens – moa, emu, and ostrich as well as reindeer, caribou and rhinoceros heads and skeletons.
But when it comes to his research, Matt turns to the trays of seabird skins collected over decades. He’s interested in the secrets hidden in their feathers and what they can tell us about the lives of the Hauraki Gulf’s seabirds in times past.
Spotted shag (Phalacrocorax punctatus) at Taiaroa Head, Otago Peninsula, New Zealand. Photo: Don Mammoser
Matt analysed the chemical signatures in feathers from five species, to understand what they were eating and which habitats they hung out in. He found that their diet hadn’t really changed over time, but their habitat preferences had – perhaps the result of the declining state of the Gulf’s ecosystem.
To learn more:
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Listen to the full episode on Our Changing World
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Celebrate the pīwauwau / tuke / rock wren underbird winner of the 2022 Bird of the Year competition by listening to this episode all about them from January 2020.
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Want to learn more about how the power of both stable and radiogenic isotopes can be harnessed to tell us about history? Listen to ‘Using chemistry to uncover the past’
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As reported in this paper, stable isotope analysis on feather samples from museums has also been used recently to investigate the past diet of kea.
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The ‘Revitalising the Gulf’ plan can be found on the Ministry for Primary Industries' website or via the Department of Conservation.
