John Strand makes a most valid point when he states that the distinction between Sea World's exhibit and research on manatees and an exhibit at your local museum is not so clear. I would submit that if the public stopped paying high prices for tickets to visit Sea World's manatees, that distinction would suddenly assume much greater clarity. The likely outcome would be that the manatees would be replaced by something like Frogmen of the Carribbean or whatever new thing the public "would" pay high prices to see. The point is that places like Sea World are businesses, and businesses exist to make a profit. Research isn't likely to get high priority if it does not feed into the organization's profit-making nature; witness the decline in America of pure R&D on the corporate level. Because the public is confused by what is and what is not a genuine museum, and because the museum world has not much helped establish distinctions, we are threatened now with the dismantling of that web of ideas about museums that was most cogently laid out in the Belmont Report of 1968 (America's Museums: The Belmont Report. Washington, DC: AAM, 1969. Such a dismantling can only encourage those on Capitol Hill in their attacks on agencies providing crucial funding to the museum community. Chuck Watkins [log in to unmask] The Appalachian Cultural Museum University Hall Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608