Anyone who has observed birds for any length of time in the wild will know what a pale, lifeless shadow of the real thing stuffed static creatures are.Anyone who has observed birds for any length of time in the wild will know what a pale, lifeless shadow of the real thing stuffed static creatures are.

I recently spent a morning in the ornithology section of the Natural History Museum, in Mdina. Basically, it is a room full of stuffed birds. Visiting was both a great joy and a great sadness.

It was a joy because one could see in one room the extraordinary variety of birdlife that Malta is blessed with. One has the chance to look at these birds at close quarters from different angles without them flying away.

You get a far better idea of comparative size than through any book and, indeed, through much field observation. How much bigger is a raven than a crow, or a curlew than a dunlin? In nature, one cannot generally judge the size of a solitary bird species accurately unless one has an object of familiar dimensions to serve as a yardstick in the vicinity.

And yet, of course, it is a room of great sadness. It is an avian mausoleum, a room of the dead. “Vagrant – recorded once”, reads the caption of the stuffed glaucous gull. The bird on display was that very bird. This was the fate met by this unique visitor when it graced us with its glorious presence.

A note in the first display case says that “most” stuffed birds are historical specimens, not recent. Some specimens show their age and look a bit bedraggled.

But, then, anyone who has observed any of these birds for any length of time in the wild will know what a pale, lifeless (pun intended) shadow of the real thing these stuffed static creatures are. Their feathers do not gleam splendidly as they catch the sunlight.

The inquisitiveness and wariness, the superb coordination and economy of movement, the purposefulness of birds, their habits, the stunning speed with which they can show different aspects of themselves, these can never be captured by a stuffed bird. What makes birds beautiful, as with human beings, is that they are alive, responsive to changing situations, never quite knowable. Stuffed birds are quite the opposite of that.

They are also evidence of the crimes against our natural history we have committed. Many hunters would now acknowledge that rare species should not be killed just to have a trophy to one’s prowess. The majestic golden eagle on display too had been “recorded once”.

But the sadness goes beyond. It is a sadness about an opportunity missed. The room appears to be not vastly different from when the museum first opened in 1973. For the Museum of Natural History remains mainly a museum of that era. Parts of it have been greatly improved – the room discussing the small islands around Malta is excellent, though it could be bigger and even better.

But while Heritage Malta has done very great things for museums of art and history all over the island, the Natural History Museum feels somewhat sad and neglected, outdated and ineffectual, as if stuck in a time warp.

READ: Heritage Malta teams up with Google to launch Wonders of Malta

This is doubly sad because the Maltese ecology is facing very worrying times. Hunting, though much less uncontrolled than it used to be, has shown a resurgence in the last few years as the police administrative law enforcement unit has been weakened and as both main parties compromise for fear of a powerful lobby.

Building permits in outside development zone areas have become more commonplace. Major developments – golf courses, university campuses – are regularly proposed in scarce areas of great natural importance – much larger trophy projects, and causing far more lasting harm, than a stuffed golden eagle.

A few years ago, permission to film Game of Thrones at Dwejra morphed into a licence to smother an uncommon, sensitive habitat with sand and then, when the irreparable damage this would do was pointed out, it was made far worse by the bulldozers sent in to clear the sand. Some things we damage because we do not care, others because we do not understand.

Natural history appears to occupy a bit of a blind spot as compared to our artistic and historical heritage

In this situation, the Natural History Museum can play a vital role. Nagging constantly against hunting just results in entrenched oppositions and God knows Malta already has enough of those. Instead, one needs to show how beautiful life is, let nature make its own argument. Each exhibit needs to tell a story.

READ: Ċittadella museum wins international award

What better way to point to the effect of unbridled hunting than to present the story of the jackdaw, currently laconically labelled “Formerly a very common resident. Became extinct locally in 1956”. Old photographs, perhaps even films of jackdaws in Malta might exist. Extracts from historical texts that talk of how common they were could be reproduced. People still survive who remember when jackdaws were common and can record their oral histories for others to listen to before they are lost forever.

Modern video recordings of jackdaws from other countries and information that shows the public why jackdaws are such interesting birds and why they are not very likely to come back can make the case strongly and cogently without being aggressive and in your face.

The other stuffed birds need to be similarly complemented with other media to tell their stories, or their part in our history, and together build up a picture of why birds are such endlessly fascinating creatures.

Malta is a vital stopping off point for migrants; indeed, it is migration that puts us on the international birding map. Which birds migrate, where from, why, where to, how do they manage to find the way and to survive such long distances, how many die trying? Why do other birds not migrate? What makes them fit for their current environment?

Some birds are best dealt with through ecological habitats. Seabirds travel staggering distances, often in the most atrocious weather, despite some being of quite diminutive size. What a story to tell!

Waders can be dealt with as a group, showing the various adaptations that fit each species to its particular niche. They co-exist peacefully because each has its own specialisation.

What do birds of prey eat in Malta? What effect is habitat loss and degradation having on numbers and species? Where are they more likely to be found? Why there?

We need to go beyond mere, dry labelling of specimens.

Our natural environment is thought to be dull and limited by the uninitiated but it is anything but. It is as much part of what makes Malta distinctive as the buildings and artefacts left by the Knights of St John (Vilhena Palace, housing the Museum of Natural History, is by the ever wonderful Mondion from the early 18th century), or the paintings of Caravaggio and de Favray and Brocktorff. Except that it is under far greater threat and, once lost, an ecology can never be reconstructed or restored.

Heritage Malta needs to play its part in preserving this vital (in both senses) piece of our heritage and the Museum of Natural History can be an immensely powerful educational and advocacy tool. It needs to be developed with the same intelligence and sensitivity as our other museums and, very soon, before we lose even more of that heritage that can never be replaced.

Most of the work done in the museum over the last few years, from reading Heritage Malta annual reports, has consisted of repairs and protection to the building itself, essential but in no way a development of the function of the museum. Natural history appears to occupy a bit of a blind spot, as compared to our artistic and historical heritage.

This would need adequate funding, a thought-through programme of development and the cooperation and utilisation of the broad expertise and great local knowledge available across many areas in something of such overwhelming national interest.

One can scarcely overstate the timeliness, and the necessity, of such a project.

Victor Pace has a very keen interest in natural history.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.