Funding boost for Montrose Natural History project

ANGUSalive Museums and Galleries are delighted to announce they have been awarded £12,804 from Museums Galleries Scotland to fund their Natural History, Living World project.

This project will support a Collections Technician who will help digitise natural history objects by adding them to a collection management database which will be available online for researchers.

The funding will also help to run a series of workshops and activities at Montrose Museum on climate change, wildlife and the environment in partnership with the Scottish Wildlife Trust at Montrose Basin.  The event programme will be announced later this year.

Montrose Basin will work on the project by updating the interpretation in the Natural History Gallery at Montrose Museum. As well as being a collaborative research partnership, it will also be positive step for responsible tourism in the local area, creating a link between the two sites and promoting cross-site visits. The project will also develop an understanding of how museum resources can be used to meet community needs.

Emma Gilliland, Museums and Galleries Collections Lead, said: “Digitising the catalogue means that we will be able to display more of these objects in exhibitions as they will be easily searchable as well as being able to record information about them accurately in one place. Therefore the collection will become much more accessible to staff, visitors, and researchers around the world.

“We’d like to investigate which animals in our collection can be seen living at Montrose Basin, and also those which were there once but are now extinct. At a time when climate change poses a serious threat we believe that caring for this collection is paramount.

“This project will use indoor and outdoor spaces which will encourage people to enjoy an active activity and connect with nature which can lead to improved mental health by helping to combat anxiety and depression.”