Cal Academy Opens New Exhibit Highlighting California's Natural Beauty

From the parched landscape of The Mojave Desert to the expansive coastline of Monterey Bay, California is one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth.

Visitors to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park can now taste much of what the state offers in one place.

Cal Academy has a newly minted permanent exhibit named California: State of Nature, which celebrates California’s unique ecosystems: deserts, forests, coasts, and cities. The exhibit opened to the public this week and is located adjacent to the iconic Osher Rainforest dome.

“We really wanted it to be vibrant and colorful to reflect those varied and diverse elements of California,” said Julia Louie, Cal Academy’s manager of exhibit design. The space is a culmination of a two-year planning and collaboration between the museum, its partner organizations, and several of California’s Indigenous communities.

The museum said this is its first major exhibition developed in collaboration with Indigenous advisors. “Whenever I participate or consult or engage with the public, I attempt to honor truth, history, and my ancestors to the best of my ability,” said Kanyon Sayers-Roods, who is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash and presented at an opening ceremony on May 23.

Visitors to the exhibit are greeted by a coyote, barn owl and hundreds of other specimens and models displayed against wooden backdrops. Popping colors of green and purple decorated the space all throughout.

“We wanted to make sure that there were a lot of multi-sensory experiences in the exhibit. Not only things that you can look at, but also things you can touch, hear, and smell,” said Paige Laduzinsky, the exhibit’s lead content developer. The team put together short videos, augmented reality and interactive objects for visitors to engage with.

For the first time in 12 years, visitors can see Monarch, one of the last grizzly bears to roam California. The bear is a grizzly subspecies that went extinct more than a hundred years ago. In 1898, Monarch was captured and bounced from one zoo to another while the rest of the Ursus arctos californicus were hunted by humans.

“It is the most interesting and the most eye-opening exhibit, specifically the realization of just how quickly the grizzly bear disappeared post-gold rush,” said Blake Williams, an Oakland software engineer who came to check out the new installation during a member-day kickoff day.

“His story now is both a symbol of loss, but also of hope for preventing future species extinction,” Laduzinsky said.

Some displays reflect the museum’s ongoing efforts to restore and preserve California’s much-loved wildlife and habitat, such as the pipevine swallowtail butterflies and the bobcats.

For Angelica Pando, who moved from New York to California six years ago, the new exhibit gave her a more in-depth view of California that she hadn’t noticed before. She was amazed to learn about the condor and the role Indigenous communities played in bringing back the species.

The Yurok Tribe has been working to reintroduce the endangered California condor into the wild since 2008. The effort has come to fruition in recent years.

“It’s nice to see all of that story being laid out like this journey in this exhibition,” Pando said.

Members of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and representatives from the Ramaytush Ohlone Tribe performed a song composed by John Wineglass, “Big Sur: The Night Sun,” at the opening event. Powerful sound of the chamber orchestra, vocalist, and the giant redwood drums filled the museum’s piazza.

“That was very moving. The musicians were so talented, and the piece was so evocative of Big Sur and the oceans,” said Mark Picciano, a San Francisco local and long-term museum member.
“The Academy of Sciences has a wonderful ability to bring in what’s going on in nature, but more and more how humans are affecting it,” he said.

The exhibition is now open to the public and here to stay.

“We have too many stories to tell,” Laduzinsky said. Her hope is that those who visit will feel more connected to the place.

“California is filled with incredible nature,” she said, “And we as humans can help protect and make California healthier and thrive going forward.”