Wildlife Museum

The Wildlife Museum houses 16,000 bird and mammal specimens.

The collection emphasizes birds, with more than 9,300 avian skins, mounts, and skeletal material, and 3,500 egg sets and nests. We also have over 3,100 mammal skins and skeletal material.

The collection is mainly from California's north coast, but includes specimens from 47 U.S. states and 46 countries.

Notable collections housed here include:

  • Stanley W. Harris collection of over 1,100 bird skins from California and Ohio.
  • The collection (in part) of Charles I. Clay of Eureka, California, which includes over 200 live mounts, close to 400 skins and over 1,400 egg sets.
  • The egg collection of Eureka cousins Lawrence Zerlang and Thomas Fraser totals over 1,500 egg sets.
  • We also house the H. E. Wilder collection of over 350 birds and mammals, The egg collection of Edw. G. Mummery of Detroit, and the historic G. W. Peacock collection of bird mounts.

Course Collection Use

The Wildlife Museum's bird skins and mammal skins and skeletons are used regularly in labs. Some of the courses that routinely use museum specimens include Ornithology, Mammals Management, Wildlife Conclave, Waterfowl, Upland Game, and Nongame Management.

Research

The Wildlife Museum's collections of bird skins, mounts, skeletons, eggs, nests, and mammal skins and skeletal material are available for use in research projects by faculty, staff, students (with faculty permission), and qualified scientists.

For more information see our collection use policies.

Searching the database

The Wildlife Museum's databases are available online through VertNetGBIF and iDigBio.

Database use policy

The Cal Poly Humboldt Wildlife Department must be acknowledged in any publications resulting from use of our specimens, and a reprint of the publication is to be sent to the curator. 

Cal Poly Humboldt Wildlife Museum data records may be used by individual researchers or research groups, but they may not be repackaged, resold, or redistributed in any form without the express written consent of Wildlife Department. If any of these records are used in an analysis or report, the provenance of the original data must be acknowledged and the Wildlife Museum notified. Cal Poly Humboldt and its staff are not responsible for damages, injury or loss due to the use of these data. 

For more information contact the Dr. Anna Goldman, Museum Curator at anna.goldman@humboldt.edu.

Displays

There are over 1,000 specimens on display throughout the Wildlife and Fisheries Building. These include over 900 birds of more than 600 taxa and 130 mammal specimens of 65 species. The building is open to the public during the semester Monday through Thursday 7am - 9pm and Friday 7am - 5pm.

Waterfowl Heritage

Our display of waterbird decoys includes working decoys over 100 years old, recent decorative decoys, and decoys used in seabird breeding colony restoration.

Contact

Dr. Anna Goldman, Museum Curator
email: anna.goldman@humboldt.edu

Phone: (707) 826-4034
Fax: (707) 826-4060

Mail: Museum Curator
Department of Wildlife
Cal Poly Humboldt
1 Harpst St. 
Arcata, CA 95521

Office/Museum
Wildlife & Fisheries Room 228
Museum Preparation Lab
Wildlife & Fisheries Room 224

Office Hours

Fall 2022

When the door is open

and by appointment