The Galapagos of California: The Farallon Islands.

Every so often the fog retreats from my neighborhood in San Francisco, moves out to sea and we are blessed with a world-class sunset. Adding to the oranges and reds, yellows and spiraling indigos of the evening sky, it also gives us a special chance to see the silhouette of the strange jagged fist of rock breaking up the crisp line of the horizon. I have gazed out upon the Farallon Islands for years. The archipelago is clearly the wildest part of The City-seemingly always just out of reach. (Many people don’t realize that these little islands are actually part of the City of San Francisco.) Since they are a federally protected wildlife refuge, they’re completely closed to the public. So to get a chance to actually set foot on South Farallon Island was an absolute honor.

We’ve tried to share the experience in as many ways as we can. I encourage everyone to really explore the islands through Quest. In addition to the television story, we have a radio presentation with reporter’s notes, a web exploration with video and stills, a unique audio slideshow, an interactive history timeline (also embedded below) and a Flickr set. We’ll also be adding another web-only video story and education guide. The only things we couldn’t bring you are the smell and chill of the wind. But we’ll get on that.

Farallon Islands History: Interactive Timeline

Watch the The Farallon Islands – "California's Galapagos" television story online.

Galapagos TortoiseOpening is less than a month away, 24 days to be exact – energy (and endurance!) is at an all time high. It is not uncommon to see people working all hours of the day and night. It is becoming a joke amongst staff that 90% of their job description falls under other duties as assigned.

This has always been an inside joke for me as project management has ranged from animal handling to chocolate tastings during my four year tenure here. My position title finally caught up with my nebulous role – Manager, Special Programming. So when I was asked to help out with exhibits, I was up to the challenge. Little did I know what I was getting myself into!

Right now, exhibits is installing over two hundred specimens into the exhibit cases on the public floor. There is one master list that denotes common name, species name, acquisition source, contact information, dimensions, and status. I was put in charge of updating and organizing that list. This gives the exhibit team more time to clean, catalogue, measure and mount the many specimens before opening day. Specimen mounting is taking place just behind the timeline of exhibit installation. The East Pavilion of exhibit cabinets are almost complete now and the tabletop and wall-mounted cases are being fitted for specimens before the dust has settled from building the overall exhibit framework.

It’s a daunting but very worthwhile task. I get to pour over the master list, sitting in a holding and cleaning room while being stared at by anything from barnacles to a majestic Mountain Lion.

Five of my favorite reptiles have recently relocated to the Galapagos area in the East Pavilion. They are five Galapagos Tortoises mounted on the Tortoise wall. You might not know that Galapagos is Spanish for tortoise and the chain of islands made famous by Charles Darwin were literally named after their largest and oldest residents – the Galapagos Tortoise. One of the perks of double checking information on the Tortoises was noting their metal classification tags. They date back to early 1900's when these specimens were brought back to San Francisco on the Academy Schooner. The Galapagos collection from the Academy voyage revitalized the museum after existing collections were lost in the 1906 earthquake. After the Academy opens to the public, guests will be able to get up close to Academy history in way of the Darwin Finches and Galapagos Tortoises. Some of our collections have never been out on display before. The Finches need incredibly sensitive mounted cases because they are so rare and scientifically valuable.

Helping with this process and seeing the minute detail that is takes to present specimens in a museum setting has been remarkable. I spend a lot of time now going over tiny details but every minute will be worth it when the Academy opens.

At 5pm on Sunday January 6, 2008, California Academy of Sciences closed its temporary location in order to start the move back to Golden Gate Park. On September 27, 2008 the Academy will open to the public once again in its new home in the Park. Many curious museum-goers have asked, why the long gap between closing and opening? 265 days is long time to move across town.

What is on the public floors of the museum is just the tip of the iceberg of the Academy's collections. Over a span of more than 150 years, the Academy has built an invaluable collection that acts as a strong backbone for the museum. Twenty million research specimens and 38,000 live animals have to be carefully packed and transported. The Academy is undertaking the most massive move ever undertaken by a museum.

The Botany collection was the first to move out of Howard Street. It took only eleven and a half days to move two million specimens. For perspective, it took 61,300 cardboard inserts bundled with over 40 miles of twine to bundle the flora. Botany is only one of eight Academy research departments preparing to move.

The Academy's packing list is as varied as its research. Ornithology and Mammalogy have to transport Monarch, the last Grizzly bear of California. Because of its size and girth, it will not be boxed. However, it will take several movers to transport it carefully. Monarch will be joined by 30,000 other mammal specimens, including study pelts, skulls, skeletons, and the world's largest collection of marine mammal specimens.

It will be even more challenging to move the Academy's live animals. 38,000 live animals will be moved, water included, back to the Park in tanks of varying sizes. One of the aquarium's Australian Lungfish will be the oldest living animal to move. Over seventy years old, this fish has seen the Academy through many changes– a move to Howard Street, and now the move back to Golden Gate Park.

The Academy's Galápagos collection will also be packed up. It features thousands of Geospizine Finches (the group studied by Darwin) and the world's largest collection of reptiles from the Galápagos.

Cultural keepsakes will be preserved. Pre-Columbian Inca clothing, 12th Century Persian ceramics, fragile feather leis, full-sized Native Alaskan kayaks, 500 Japanese folk toys, and a renowned collection of eating utensils will also find their home in Golden Gate Park.

To give you a sense of the immensity of the project, 20 million specimens include the following:

• Over 200,000 fish specimens preserved in alcohol, including a rare coelacanth (thought to be extinct until discovered in the 1930s);
• 14.5 million insects and arachnids, including more than 874,789 flies, some 524,666 true bugs, nearly 3 million beetles, and more than 700,000 butterflies and moths;
• Nearly 100,000 bird specimens, including the now-extinct Guadalupe Storm Petrel and 10,600 sets of bird nests and eggs;
• More than a quarter of a million reptiles and amphibians from 166 countries.

The sheer volume of this move makes it a migration. Over 20 million specimens can not be moved in a day. It will take every one of those 265 days to move and prepare to share the wealth of the Academy once again with the public. To find out more about this "Great Migration" and the museum that will ultimately house the collections – visit http://www.calacademy.org/newacademy.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.769, longitude: -122.467