Tens of Thousands of Animal Skulls and Bones Seek New Home in North Savonia

The Natural History Museum in Iisalmi, Northern Savonia, Finland, is facing a challenging situation. The museum, housed in the basement of a cultural center, will see its space reduced by half during an upcoming renovation. This significant change means the museum will not be able to continue its operations as before. The future of the museum’s extensive collection, which includes over 100,000 animal, plant, and insect specimens, is also uncertain.

The museum’s collection of small mammal specimens is particularly valuable, with over 40,000 samples, including animal skulls and pelts. The upcoming renovation will require dismantling of the museum’s large dioramas (three-dimensional landscapes), which will not fit into the reduced space. Some of the stuffed animals and samples will be relocated to a city storage facility, while a substantial portion of the collection may be transferred to the Natural History Museum in Kuopio.

The space must be cleared by the end of May 2025, a process that is expected to take four to five months. As a result, the museum will close later this year. Plans for the future museum space are still under consideration, with the possibility of including similar dioramas to the current museum. Decisions will be made by the local nature lover’s association this autumn.

The museum’s collection owes much to the work of local researcher Uolevi Skarén, who specialized in small mammals and passed away in 2019. Skarén collected samples and conducted detailed observations of small mammals from the 1950s until 2015.

The museum’s curator, Kai Jäderholm, believes that digitized materials will be of interest to people working on dissertations. The museum has received several inquiries about the collection, particularly with regard to birds of prey, which are of interest to those involved in land use applications. This interest has increased with the expansion of wind farm construction throughout Finland.

The Natural History Museum has been part of the cultural center since its construction in 1990. Despite a dip in visitor numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been receiving around 2,300 visitors annually. This year, the numbers are expected to significantly increase, with the count already at 2,300. The museum removed its admission fee in March until its closure.

Jarmo Yliluoma, Chairman of the Iisalmi Nature Lovers’ Association, recalls the founding of the museum as a massive undertaking. “Back then, there were about ten active people, but today half of that number are involved,” says Yliluoma.