Liang 1

Junting (Tony) Liang

CWR1A Sect. 23
May 7, 2019
An Inspiring Exhibition in Oakland Museum of California

The Gallery of Natural Sciences in Oakland Museum of California offers an inspiring

exhibition on California’s natural beauty and its interactions with human. The gallery

introduces seven distinct regions in California with outstandingly rich biodiversity: Oakland,

Sutter Buttes, Mount Shasta, Yosemite, Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Tehachapis,

and Coachella Valley. Unfortunately, it seems that they all bear various degrees of disturbance

by human inhabitation and industry, but this may also be why Don Pohlman, the Senior

Exhibition Developer of OMCA, stresses that it “is an obligation” (Pohlman 1) to add human

element into the museum. So, the Gallery of Natural Sciences emphasizes human interactions

with environment and how these interactions have shaped the ecosystems here, leading the

visitors to think beyond the superficies of the exhibits.

Oakland is the first area to come on stage in the gallery. As the exact place where the

museum is located, Oakland should be the place many visitors are most familiar with. Thus, it

goes well with the Pohlman’s thought that

“we like to talk and hear about ourselves”

(Pohlman 1). People living around the area

would generally be interested in how the

museum would depict their environment.

Yet this section uncovers some sorrow

under the “flourishing” urban development.

A fence climbing full of willow left me Willow growing on the fence

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with a deep impression. No one may really pay attention to bunch of plants on a street corner,

but it symbolizes a sign of wildlife. The display tells that the growth of the plant signals clean

water underground. More importantly, it serves as a shelter, which some little animals like

racoons rely on for existence. While making people surprised by the tenacity of life, the

exhibit pictures the helplessness of these lifeforms. City development has taken their natural

habitats. Squeezing with each other, they try to find only a smallest place to maintain their

faint flame of life in this cold forest of concrete. Some local people may have seen these

resilient animals and plants somewhere nearby, but how many of them will truly realize that it

was humans who have taken their inherited homeland?

One problem here in Oakland is even crueler: roadkill. The section shows that even in

areas where people consider to be wild (because no one has settled there), a plain bituminous

road is enough to threaten animals’ survival by car accidents. The exhibit points out that

roads cut through habitats and migration routes, forcing the animals to risk their lives just to

walk several meters. Visitors can pull out the drawers in the large front grill of a dark SUV

here. Inside the drawers, the preserved specimens made from real animal carcasses

reestablish their horrible looks, letting people imagine the whole tragedy and shudder. They

may cause resonance in visitors’ mind. The Oakland section uses a direct approach to

effectively transmit how humans have disturbed ecosystems wherever man–made

infrastructure extends to, causing people to think about the results of urbanization for nature,

maybe even how their own daily life in city has impact these wild lives.

Walking deeper into the gallery, Yosemite comes into sight with its famous natural

beauty and rich biodiversity. The animal dioramas here are from the old part of the
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completely renovated Gallery finished in 2014. The section models many scenes of

interaction between animals. Isn’t this the best way to convey the “biodiversity” in this

landscape? One scene is a

tense confrontation between a

coyote and a wolverine for

food, a cunning and quick

animal versus an aggressive

and strong one. I suppose it

was designed to draw out the Coyote and Wolverine

magnificent competition in nature. Another exhibit puts a porcupine on top of a tree, with a

fisher, who is the only animal that knows how to finish off a porcupine, staring from a lower

branch. This shows a predatory relationship, with two individuals demonstrating their

survival strategies. These dioramas convey the cruel natural law of survival of the fittest

while expressing the beauty of untamed. Maybe because of the social nature of humans,

people generally prefer to see the interactions

between different organisms rather than one

standing animal. Therefore, showing interactions

between species both helps enrich the content of

an exhibit and engage the visitors in Yosemite to

see amazing scenes they can seldom see in real

life. Unfortunately, the stories get sad again when

human activities are involved. I learnt that hunters

Porcupine and Fisher
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killed so many wolverines and fishers for their fur that such scenes are very rare today,

prompting visitors to consider the issue of overexploitation in recent history. The Yosemite

section is a typical one where the “key change” (Pohlman 2) in the gallery perfectly applies:

“showcase the state’s incredible biodiversity and the threats it faces” (Pohlman 2). The

exhibits demonstrate different views on the ecosystems; and many allude the historical

human destruction to environment and remind us of responsibility to restore the wild places.

Following Yosemite is the section Tehachapis. Here I learnt about many negative impacts

brought by invasion of colonizers and their foreign species. Invasive grasses can be

connected to wild fire. A display describes different stages history of wild fires. For millennia

before conquest, native people managed the forest well through “cultural burning”, which is

the controlled burn of shorter plants to clear up the potential for whole forests to burn.

However, colonizers came and presumptuously filled up the space between the trees by

planting excess ones, which became the perfect fuel for extensive wild fires. The display may

penetrate straight into visitors’ hearts because of the likely irreversibility of the problem,

raising a sorrow that harmony in the past may never return. Another story told here is about

Tule elk in California. A

group of graphs shows that

the huge population of elk

diminished in only about

twenty years during the time

gold miners grabbed their

habitats and hunted them for

Tule elk
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their meat. It is astonishing to see the how fast the elk’s distribution shrinks on the maps over

only decades. This quick transformation may shock visitors by the extreme degradation speed

of life. It demonstrates how powerful human intervention can be. Overall, the Tehachapis

could contribute to a problem Don Pohlman “worried about”: “the emotional fatigue that

comes with considering our environment crisis” (Pohlman 2). However, such emotion is just

what the museum is trying to raise in visitor by adding human elements into the museum.

Human’s negative impacts on the environment should be exposed to public.

The Gallery of Natural Sciences’ exhibitions allow me to expand my recognition of the

history and current status of the natural environment in California. It achieves the Exhibition

Developer Pohlman’s goal of engaging the visitors with displays that expose both rich

content and tight connection to human. The Gallery arranges the exhibits in an interactive

way and makes every one of them worth thinking about. The exhibition does not only teach

scientific knowledge, but also inspires people’s mind and hearts by having them to consider

their relation to the environmental issues presented in the seven regions.

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Work Cited

Pohlman, Don. Adding Humans to a Natural Sciences Gallery. Oakland Museum of California.

Oakland, September 2014. 8 April 2019.

All pictures by Junting Liang