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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | 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] | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------