| Charles R. Conner Museum traces its beginnings back to 1894, when Charles R. Conner, president of the Board of Regents, persuaded the state of Washington to donate its exhibits from the Chicago World's Fair to the fledgling Washington Agricultural College. Those first exhibits were a mixture of several disciplines including anthropology, geology, and biology and, of course, agriculture. Over time and through the influence of successive curators, the museum's theme gradually narrowed and focused on vertebrate animals. Today the museum's exhibits display over 700 mounts of birds and mammals and the scientific collection used by researcher's houses over 65,000 specimens. The bulk of the museum's specimens is included in the Conner research collection and is not mounted for display. This collection of over 65,000 specimens' documents the occurrence of both common and rare species in particular places at specific times and thus helps paint a picture of the distribution of animals as they change through time. Because mammals and birds grow and molt with the season, the collection provides examples of individuals of a given species as they appear at different times of the year and at different ages. This is of considerable importance whether the identification of an animal is important for population management or species protection. |
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