A natural history treasure - the skeleton of a giant blue whale, which was removed from Prince Edward Island for display in a new centre at the University of British Columbia is nearing completion on its great journey from the sands of PEI to become the centrepiece of the new
Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
Updates from the Blue Whale Project keep track of the progress. The continued progress on the West Coast to ensure that natural history education is available to BC residents helps show the value of this form of education to a research and educational institution like UBC. Sadly their progress once again reminds those of us on the East Coast of our own lack of progress. Islanders have been calling for a natural history museum since 1881. More recently we have seen strong public support for the fulfillment of the natural history mandate of the PEI Museum & Heritage Foundation which was granted in 1983 by the Legislature of PEI - and still not a single employee has been hired. And no plan is in place to begin addressing this mandate.
The Robert Ghiz government was elected on a strong platform that included a commitment to a central provincial museum. While solid progress has been made since on many important issues, the natural history mandate is one that remains untouched. The time to keep sending our valuable artifacts to world class museums around the world is over. The time to tell our story - the story of life on earth - and more particularly life on this very special part of our planet is now.
No comments:
Post a Comment