March for Science Adelaide

18/05/2024

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-18/whale-strandings-research-migration-south-australia-museum-sa/103854930?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

The former head of the SA Museum's whale research team says the collection of specimens and the performing of necropsies have ceased due to a lack of funding and staff.

10/04/2024

Over 400 high-profile individuals have signed an open letter to Premier Peter Malinauskas, saying they are “deeply concerned” about a proposed restructure of the South Australian Museum.

09/04/2024

It's time to stand up for our much-loved museum!

As part of its restructure, the South Australian Museum plans to abolish all 27 positions in the Research and Collections division, replacing them with 22 new positions dedicated to curatorial research, at much lower levels and with no support for the front-line research the SAM is known for around the planet.

The changes underway will devastate the SA Museum's research capability, world-class biological collections and First Nations knowledge. Speaking to InDaily, former director Tim Flannery warns of the proposed restructure: "the collections are there for research, and without research, the collections wither and die, and with that the museum withers and dies”.

Join all the Museum lovers at the Parliament House steps on the 13th of April to protest this restructure and Help Keep Science Alive at the South Australian Museum.

14/03/2024

‘Thrown away’: More concerns over SA Museum research plan.

Charlie Gilchrist has written further in InDaily (13/2/2024) about the proposed downgrading of Research and Collections at the SA Museum, interviewing staff from the University of Adelaide: 'Thrown away': More concerns over SA Museum research plan - InDaily

He quotes Professor Robert Hill as saying that research at the Museum is being “deliberately downplayed and treated with contempt”. Professor Hill highlighted the importance of museums in identifying and describing species and noted that “we’re going through a period of massive environmental change” but “If we don’t have a group of really well-trained people who are monitoring what’s going on, who can talk with authority … [then] we’ve lost our ability to protect against what I think will be one of the major challenges for future generations’.

Associate Professor Kate Sanders also said that museums and their collections play a key role in understanding climate change. “That community of curators and collection managers have expertise that just doesn’t exist anywhere else, including at the university”.

Professor Andrew Austin said that other Australian museums are currently expanding their research programs but noted that in the proposed restructure at the SA Museum, “the new curator positions have very, very little research time and they’re all at very low promotional levels, much lower than the current staff”.


Can you identify what sort of feather this is and which species it is from?

A museum ornithologist could tell us, but if restructure plans at the SA Museum go ahead, there probably won’t be one!

Answer: tail feather of a Peregrine Falcon.

14/03/2024

The Parliament of South Australia acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures and to the Elders both past and present.

21/04/2023

Researchers have found elephant seals falling asleep out at sea, tumbling hundreds of metres deep in uncontrolled spirals and sometimes "laying motionless on the sea floor".

21/04/2023

21/04/2023

12/02/2023

https://fb.watch/iEKNuE_I-l/?mibextid=6aamW6

07/02/2023

https://www.facebook.com/66685764349/posts/10160564495854350/?sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6