Bozeman News

Bones of Contention

Beloved Dino Museum to Close its Doors, Shutting Down the Public

By Betsey Weltner, Guest Writer, 6-23-09

Folks can still seen an Allosaurus at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, but not in Wyoming.

Revolution rages in Tehran and the world is transfixed by millions of Iranians demanding free speech. Laramie, Wyoming is light years away from the Islamic world, but amid charges of repression of free speech and totalitarian decisions, a revolt is gaining momentum against the University of Wyoming (UW) trustees—and its emblematic martyr is Big Al, the Allosaurus.

Facing an $18.3 million budget shortfall, UW decided to close the school’s Geological Museum in response to the state of Wyoming’s mandated 10 percent budget cuts. The museum will close to the public July 1; its director and assistant are among the people who will lose their jobs as a result.

Big Al, the star of the BBC’s Allosaurus - A Walking with Dinosaurs Special—whose incredibly preserved bones greet museum visitors—will become a recluse. Some researchers may be able to see him, but not the public. The same goes for other museum prizes, including one of the only mounted skeletons of an Apatosaurus (or Brontosaurus, as it was formerly called).

The closure has caused a stir among the dino world and the controversy has permeated both conventional media and the blog world (for a good overview and TV report from 9NEWS.com, click here). An online petition to save the museum has garnered more than 2,000 signatures from fans and paleo experts around the world, but the campaign has fallen on deaf ears.

This, against a backdrop in which “UW has given their president a $50,000 raise as well as put several million dollars into stadium renovations” in the past year,” according to the Daily Kos. Paleophiles have pointed out that while the 10 percent budget cut will close the museum and eliminate other academic programs, the athletic budget will only be reduced by five percent for fiscal year 2010.

Images of protest marches being shut down by Iranian clerics flashed across TV screens last week at the same time the university refused to allow public comment during its budget meeting. Admittedly there is all the difference in the world between folks wanting to keep a dinosaur museum open and Iranians being gunned down by government thugs for demanding basic freedoms. But it does seem that university leaders would have been sensitive to the expectation of open meetings.

It also seems they should have learned a few lessons from the 1960s and ’70s. Faculty, students and the public should have a say in how public funds are spent or retracted, and how decisions are made that affect the public.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported that a trustees meeting scheduled for July 1 will be cancelled. Meanwhile, bloggers like Dinochick continue to appeal to the public to save Big Al by signing the online petition.

In contrast to the turmoil around Wyoming’s dino museum, the Museum of the Rockies (MOR) in Bozeman is on a reduced budget, but sound footing. While MOR cut its administrative budget to reflect less funding, its programs are still bringing school children from around Montana to see the hundreds of dinosaurs in its Seibel dinosaur complex, and it’s still teaching one quarter million visitors every year about the reptiles that lived in Montana over 100 million years ago.

While both museums boast impressive collections of fossils, MOR differs from the Geological Museum on several key points:

--Both are connected to universities, but MOR’s management and funding is somewhat independent of Montana State University.

--MOR is run by a separate and independent corporation, Museum of the Rockies Inc., whose board is comprised of community members.

--Only 20 percent of MOR’s funding comes directly from the state and the university.

It could be that the MOR’s independent, community-run board has made the decisive difference that will keep MOR’s Big Mike, the Tyrannosaurus Rex who presides over the entrance to the building, from suffering the fate of Big Al.

Keeping these fossils on view might not change the world, but it does help us understand it. And that’s worth making a noise about—and being heard.

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