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E-mail StoryLocal museum funding runs dry
| Saturday, Jul 22 2006 7:50 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Jul 22 2006 9:17 PM
Bakersfield was once a tropical location, complete with sea turtles, whales and sharks.
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All that is left of it now is fossils. The Buena Vista Museum of Natural History has hundreds of artifacts dating back to the Miocene Epoch.
"We are into preserving the natural history of Bakersfield," said Koral Hancharick, museum executive director.
She'd like to expand the museum to a 50,000-square-foot location, but without even enough money in the bank for emergencies, it's a tough proposition.
A case in point: It recently closed early for about three weeks until the broken air conditioning system was fixed with about $2,000 worth of donated services.
"The museum makes it each month, but it is a struggle," Hancharick said, noting there's no state or federal funding. "General operation expenses are paid through membership fees and general donations. That is how we survive."
The museum wants to survive just like its well-known collections, including 14 million- to 16 million-year-old fossils from Shark's Tooth Hill in northeast Bakersfield. Since the 1850s, people have mined shark's teeth and other relics from the hill, Hancharick said.
Within the 14,000 square feet of exhibits is the rarest fossil in the world. The bones of an allodesmus, the ancestor of the sea lion, were found at Shark's Tooth Hill in almost complete form.
Hancharick believes the creature was trapped under a collapse of land, which left its bones in the same position as the living creature.
"This is Kern County's history. To have things that are so rare that people come from all over the world to see it is very exciting," Hancharick said.
Museum board President Mark Hodson said the museum needs community support to flourish.
"We've been closer to the edge than we'd like to be with money. Sometimes it can be more urgent than others. It is the support of the community that will keep this museum going," Hodson said.
To operate like a true museum, Hancharick said they would need more than $100,000 worth of donations.
A better security system and more display cases are just a few of the needs, along with more than the current 25 volunteers.
Other museums such as the Kern County Museum receive funding from local government sources.
"That is how we have become so successful," said Carola Enriquez, Kern County Museum's director. "If we were waiting for people to donate money, we wouldn't be doing as well."
The Kern County Museum accommodates approximately 103,000 people per year, compared with the Buena Vista Museum's 4,500 a year.
Hancharick believes the museum's uniqueness will keep it alive.
"Under one roof we contain paleontology, geology, anthropology, biology, archeology and astronomical displays," she said.
The museum is home to the fossils of the largest leatherback turtle ever found, as well as the most complete skeleton found from a Miocene Epoch baleen whale.
There's also a large collection of mounted animals, and a dinosaur collection includes replicas of dinosaur bones and eggs. Soon they will have a real bone from a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
There are rocks and minerals, too.
"That is how our collection has grown. People just bring things into us," Hancharick said. "They say, 'here you go. You don't have one of these, so here you go.'"
New to Kern County? Looking for a place to go with your family? Heres a sampling of museums in Kern:
Bakersfield Museum of Art, 1930 R St., Bakersfield
Buena Vista Museum of Natural History, 2018 Chester Ave., Bakersfield
California Living Museum, 10500 Alfred Harrell Highway, Bakersfield
Kern County Museum, 3801 Chester Ave., Bakersfield
Kern Valley Museum, 49 Big Blue Road, Kernville
Maturango Museum, 100 E. Las Flores Ave., Ridgecrest
West Kern Oil Museum, 1168 Wood St., Taft