Exotic animal exhibit opens

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Above: This rhino is on permanent display for school children and the public in the Gilcrease Room.

Below: Dr. David Chesemore is charged with preserving the grizzly bear on his left as well as many other taxidermy-mounted animals in the natural history collection.

by Mary Lisa Russell

Lions and tigers and bears are just part of the School of Natural Sciences' exotic animal exhibit, which hundreds of Valley school children visited during the Peach Blossom Festival on March 24 and 25.

Most of these children have never had - and may never again have - the opportunity to see animals this rare and beautiful.

More than 40 rare taxidermy-mounted animals, donated by Jeff and Karen Gilcrease of Lemoore as part of the school's natural history collection, now fill the "Gilcrease Room" on the first floor of the Science Building as a permanent exhibit.

The animals were acquired from the Gilcreases' uncle, William Asberry "Berry" Gilcrease, who was a big game hunter in the '50s and '60s and died in 1995 at the age of 102.

"Berry hunted these animals long before any of them became endangered back in the late '50s," said Dr. David Chesemore, professor of biology. "The family thought it was important to preserve the collection to ensure the study and history of these animals."

"Specimens are the biologist's reference library," said Chesemore. "New scientific tools, such as DNA analysis, can make these animals 'talk' and reveal our evolutionary history."

Chesemore said his colleague Dr. Brian Tsukimura has biology graduate students working on DNA analysis of the Gilcrease animals. He also said that these animals are like a time machine and can take biologists back more than 50 years to help learn how the species changed genetically and perhaps estimate how well they will survive in the future.

The new Gilcrease Room is still under construction, but can be seen by appointment. "We are in the process of putting up protective barriers that will keep the exhibit safe," said Dr. Steve Schmeiser, school development director.

Chesemore said the Gilcrease collection was extensive and only two-thirds of it is on display in the room. Other items in the collection that might go on display later are zebra skins, a life-size grizzly bear, a full-body mountain goat and a variety of other antelopes.

"We just don't have the room to put the entire display up," said Chesemore. His hope is that the Gilcrease collection will be displayed in the natural history museum that is proposed as part of the Central California Science Center being built on campus.