As a supplement to Ellen Blackstone's message, both the Burke Museum in
Seattle and the Slater Museum in Tacoma have been providing Seattle Audubon
with their skin collection, so birds you turn in to these museums can still
be used for that purpose. Taking them to the museum is just as good as
getting them to Keith Geller, and, furthermore, museum personnel will know
if the specimen is of some special value for research.

Most common birds are represented by sufficient material in research
collections that they can be allocated to teaching collections such as that
maintained by SAS, but an occasional dead bird of a common species turns
out to be an exceptionally interesting specimen to save for scientific
study, not to mention the possibility of a rarity.

They are *all* worth saving for posterity, a point we can't make too often.
Other than the nourishment of some carrion-eating animals and a lot of
bacteria, the *only* saving grace about a bird dying from human causes is
if it is preserved for education and/or research (or, I have to add, if it
is used to avoid starvation).

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416