You should contact George Baumgardner and Kathryn Vaughn at the Texas
Cooperative Wildlife Collection to find out how to deal with
flood-drenched biological specimens. The collection was flooded at its
previous site over 3 years ago when a water main burst. There was a lot of
silt carried by water (estimated at over 1 million gallons by the time the
main was shut off). The damaged specimens were saved by immediate
freezing, then freeze-drying. George and Kathryn have presented the slides
of this disaster at meetings of the Society for the Preservation of
Natural History Collections and the American Society of Mammalogists. BMS
Catastrophe provided the freezing and freeze-drying services as well as
the clean-up of the area. It was not inexpensive, but it saved a huge
collection that would otherwise have been lost. Skeletal material was not
frozen, but skins, boxes, drawers, cases, and documents were.

Sally Shelton
Director, Collections Care and Conservation

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|                                                                       |
|                 San Diego Natural History Museum                      |
|                          P. O. Box 1390                               |
|                San Diego, California   92112  USA                     |
|             phone (619) 232-3821; FAX (619) 232-0248                  |
|                     email [log in to unmask]                          |
|                                                                       |
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