WSJ piece on old bird egg collections .............................................
June 14, 2005
Some Collectors Try To Keep All Their Eggs In One Family Basket
Pat More Guards Collection Museums Would Love; Wildlife Lover Gets a Peek
By SUSAN WARREN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
VERNON, Texas -- When his father died in 1972, Pat More inherited an unusual legacy: the family's collection of more than 10,000 birds' eggs dating back to the late 1800s.
Mr. More's grandfather, Robert L. More, was 14 years old when he picked up his first egg in 1888 from the nest of a black vulture on the family farm. He later displayed his collection above the family's service station, and the exhibit drew visitors from around the world. Pat More closed this private museum to the public 20 years ago, but he still feels obligated to care for it.
"It's a burden that I have accepted," says Mr. More, who is 60 years old.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, bird lovers didn't just watch birds -- they took their eggs. Devotees known as oologists prowled the prairies, climbed trees and dangled off cliffs to snatch eggs from nests. They drained the eggs' contents through tiny holes in order to preserve the shells intact, and then traded and sold the eggs like baseball cards.
"It seems terribly politically incorrect now, but back then it was perfectly OK," says Carrol Henderson, a wildlife biologist for Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources.
The practice was eventually ended by laws protecting birds. Though most egg collections were destroyed, hundreds survived. They contain scientific treasures -- including DNA that some conservationists hope might someday allow cloning of extinct birds, a la Jurassic Park dinosaurs. The eggs also present a dilemma to collectors' descendants who find themselves torn between family sentiment, public duty and scientific interests.
John Handsaker discovered his great-grandfather's egg collection two years ago when he decided to renovate the man's long-abandoned Iowa farmhouse. He found a great wooden chest containing 3,600 eggs nestled into beds of cedar sawdust. Mr. Henderson, a family friend, spent days cataloging the eggs of 467 species, including puffins from Scotland, a black-footed albatross from Japan, and a black vulture and Cooper's hawk obtained from an R. More in Texas.
Mr. Henderson urged the family to donate the collection for research, but the family is still wrestling with that. Mr. Handsaker's father favors giving away the eggs. But his uncle doesn't want to let them leave the family. "To him, it's a very personal attachment," says Mr. Handsaker.
Collections vary widely in quality. Most were haphazardly gathered or have deteriorated. Some oologists, like Mr. Handsaker's great-grandfather, took meticulous notes on the appearance and habits of bird species and documented the time, place and circumstances of each find, creating a valuable historic record.
There was a dark side: Some collectors repeatedly harvested eggs of rare species, which because of their rarity were particularly valuable. One traders' catalog from 1904 lists the egg of a California condor -- a species that later nearly became extinct -- for $350. By comparison, the egg of a common blue jay traded for 10 cents.
Selling the eggs now -- even the old collections -- is outlawed by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and other wildlife protection laws, but the collections still have scientific value and can be donated to museums or research institutions. For instance, shell thickness over time can show the environmental effects of pesticides. Collectors' notes can help biologists evaluate the effects of climate change and urban sprawl and provide insight in protecting endangered species.
"Eggs are a priceless window into our environmental history," says Scott Edwards, a biology professor and curator of the bird and egg collection at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, who is interested in acquiring the Handsaker collection.
One reason families are reluctant to donate their collections is that they could be locked away in the basement of some research institution, never to be seen again. Such fears aren't baseless. To properly preserve eggs, scientists believe that they must be kept out of public view. Light fades color and markings, humidity produces mold, and heat makes brittle shells even more fragile.
The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in Camarillo, Calif., has gathered more than 300 egg collections since the 1960s. The foundation now has more than a million eggs hermetically sealed away in drawers off-limits to the public, though open to scientists for research. "They say don't put all your eggs in one basket, but here we are," says collections manager Rene Corado.
Once or twice a year, the foundation tracks down another collection, usually from heirs, universities or museums that can no longer take care of the eggs. And it's not unusual to meet resistance.
Two years ago, Mr. Corado tried to persuade officials in the tiny East Texas town of Mount Vernon to relinquish a collection because it contained rare eggs from the passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet and heath hen, all extinct. The eggs had been donated to the town for its new natural-history museum, and Mr. Corado was asked to evaluate the collection.
Mr. Corado warned that the eggs would deteriorate without proper care and offered to take them. But town officials refused.
"We thought, if it's worth that much to them, it's worth more to us," says J.D. Baumgardner, president of the county historical society. The city committed $45,000 to build a special light- and climate-controlled exhibit and hopes to put the eggs on public display sometime next year.
Museums and universities also have sought to get their hands on the More collection, but grandson Pat More has steadfastly refused to part with a cherished piece of family history. Bob More collected many of the eggs from the giant Waggoner Ranch in Wilbarger County, Texas, where his job as ranch manager sent him roaming across the ranch's half-million acres of bird-rich scrub land. He painstakingly documented his finds according to the American Ornithologists' Union guidelines and created his own bird museum on the second floor of his office building and gas station in Vernon.
For decades, schoolchildren trooped through the egg museum on field trips, and listings in tour guides drew a steady stream of visitors.
Pat More closed the museum because he didn't have enough time to devote to showing the collection. This spring, he gave local high-school student Brady Surber, who plans to major in wildlife biology in college, a rare personal tour. The 19-year-old took pictures and scribbled notes about the eggs, displayed neatly in glass-faced cabinets, many still in their original nests.
"I was amazed by the thoroughness of it," says Mr. Surber. "The eggs are in perfect condition."
Though Mr. More doesn't have the time or resources to restore the private museum to its former glory, doing that remains his goal. Giving the collection away isn't in his plans.
"No one would take care of it like I would," he says.
Write to Susan Warren at susan.warren@wsj.com
Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
