Time for Taxonomy

People like to give advice. It happens all the time with parents, friends, colleagues, strangers and others. There are some discussions about what advice is needed, and then it happens, bringing a feeling of importance and pride at providing such sage input.

But what happens when someone asks for really tough advice? For example, how can we use science to conserve the plants and animals everywhere on Earth? The first response might be to run, fast, in the other direction. Or, you might take a deep breath, think deep thoughts, consult with colleagues and forge ahead. That is the way it is for a group that gives advice about taxonomy to the leaders of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Taxonomists are science experts that discover, describe, name and classify species of plants and animals. Those are the first important steps in understanding the ever-changing inventory of life on Earth, and in making plans for conservation.

The CBD is interested in taxonomy because the capacity of existing experts cannot keep up with the needs for conservation. More capacity is needed, and it may be created through the development of new tools and better ways to operate, and by training more experts, to name a few means.

The plenary hall at the 15th meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Technology and Technological Advice, a part of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. November 2011.

The first order of such a business was to create an international group that knows about taxonomy and that could describe what needs to get done. Welcome to the Global Taxonomy Initiative (GTI), a team that has been providing advice to the Secretariat and the 193 countries who have been part of the CBD since 1998.

Image: © Global Taxonomy Initiative

Working with the staff of the Convention, the GTI established focal points in each of the countries and created a communication network among them. In Canada, the focal point is the Canadian Museum of Nature. Canada is also taking a turn at leading the GTI (also done by the Canadian Museum of Nature). The network exchanges information about taxonomic needs, best practices and other information, and news about the field. The GTI has also developed a programme of work that addresses the steps in gaining more scientific capacity, including a strategy for the next 10 years.

These plans are always ambitious and hopeful. Even though there are not enough taxonomists to meet the growing challenges in conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, the ones we have are doing great things.

You will never find more dedicated, interesting characters. And they are the best people to have along when you walk in the woods or snorkel through the weeds. These experts work in many scientific settings, but for a really good demonstration of what they do, visit your local natural-history museum. That is where many taxonomists do their research, and the results are regularly on display.

Imagine a World without Seafood

Could you stop eating fish and seafood completely? Would you miss the taste and health benefits of eating salmon, tuna, haddock, shrimp, crab, lobster, scallops and all the other succulent species from our oceans? We may not have a choice because many scientists predict that most seafood will be fished to near extinction by 2048.

Photo of dead fish taken from the documentary The End of the Line. If we continue to pillage our oceans of seafood, we may run out completely by 2048. © Image reproduced with the permission of Tom Alexander of Mongrel Media.

The issue of exploring sustainable seafood sources was discussed at length at the museum’s third Café scientifique of the season, held on January 27, 2012. During the event, participants discussed the question “Is eating seafood ethical and sustainable?”

The two guest speakers initiating the discussion were Melissa Marschke, Ph.D., assistant professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa, and Joshua Bishop, owner of The Whalesbone Oysterhouse and Sustainable Oyster and Fish Supply.

To begin the evening, participants watched The End of the Line, a documentary detailing the swift decline of seafood from our oceans and the destructive consequences of continuing these unsustainable harvesting practises.

This film places the responsibility on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishing companies who break their quotas and sell their catch illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

Guest speaker Melissa Marschke (left) shares her views on sustainable fishing practices with a group of café participants. Image: Sarah McPherson © Canadian Museum of Nature

Of the many topics discussed, that of the rise of fish farming, or aquaculture, was at the top. This “blue revolution” is taking over international sources of imported seafood, such as shrimp and catfish from Vietnam, Thailand and China.

Melissa spoke in detail about the negative impact these fish farms are having on local fisherfolk who are trying to provide for their family. To put the numbers in context, she stated that 50% of seafood imported into North America is farmed. Unfortunately, these fish farms are still employing “ocean real estate”: their pens are in the ocean shallows. When multiple fish farms follow suit, very little open ocean, not to mention fewer fish species, are left for residents to eat and sell locally.

Additionally, what many consumers are completely ignorant of is that buying farmed fish still affects wild fish depletion. Since many species of farmed fish, such as Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), are carnivorous, fish farmers rely on catching copious amounts of wild smaller fish, such as the sardine European Pilchard (Sardina pilchardus), and grind them up as fish meal. Therefore, on a global scale, the very model of fish farming is definitely not sustainable.

A fish farm on the Chanthaburi River, Thailand. Image: © iStockphoto.com/rattanapat

Another common conflict many participants discussed was that of mixed messages regarding seafood in our diet. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada states that we should eat at least two servings of fish every week, especially the kinds that are highest in omega-3 fats.

In fact, many people who have eliminated chicken, pork and beef from their diets will still eat seafood to receive the necessary protein. Therefore, as both health conscience and ecologically concerned consumers, to whom do we listen?

Cutting fish and seafood out of one’s diet entirely is certainly still an option, as many participants at the café stated they have indeed done. However, Joshua doesn’t believe that eliminating fish from our plates is necessarily the answer. The real solution, he states, is staying educated about the topic, asking the necessary questions of seafood restaurants and retailers, and creating a larger demand for sustainable choices.

Many stores are making strides towards providing sustainable seafood (see links below), but we as the consumers must continue to demand these products. Once businesses know that there is a large-enough market, sustainably caught fish will, hopefully, be widely available and easily identifiable.

So, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it may feel, consumers must not only ask for sustainable seafood, but also question retailers about its source. Although a product may be labeled “sustainable”, retailers should still be able to provide the background information about the provider and the method caught, if asked.

Guest speaker Joshua Bishop (left) listens as a café participant shares his views on sustainable seafood. Image: Sarah McPherson © Canadian Museum of Nature

Are you still unsure about what to buy? Many participants did find the various guides available (see “Seafood eating guides” links below) quite useful, and “there’s even an app for that”, for the technological savvy seafood shopper. (http://www.oceanwise.ca/news/ocean-wise-iphone-app)

Therefore, it’s not a hopeless situation for the seafood lovers out there. As Melissa and Joshua both insisted, it isn’t about eliminating seafood from our diets completely; it’s about being aware of where and how it was caught, as well as which specific species to avoid, such as the endangered Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) and the Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua). And asking those necessary questions is of the utmost importance.

As Joshua summarized, “we can turn things around if the proper efforts are made!”

Continuing the Discussion

We would like to invite everyone to continue the discussion of ethical and sustainable seafood practices below in the comments section. Please feel free to respond to any of the follow-up questions raised during the Café scientifique. We also encourage you to post other useful or informative links/resources, if not already listed below.

Follow-Up Questions

• What do you find is the largest barrier to purchasing sustainably harvested seafood? (For example, availability, awareness, price, etc.)
• Of the available seafood guides in circulation (see links below), which ones do you find the most helpful?
• How can we (in the Ottawa–Gatineau area) encourage more people and businesses to endorse and purchase exclusively from sustainable sources?
• Is certification of sustainable fish sources truly the answer?
• Do we have an ethical responsibility to support small-scale fishing over large-scale industrial fishing if both are considered unsustainable?
• Is buying locally harvested fish, such as wild Pacific salmon, better than buying internationally harvested fish, such as farmed Tilapia from Asia, when neither source may be sustainable?

Resources
Seafood-eating guides:

• http://wwf.ca
• http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/food-and-our-planet/suzukis-top-10-sustainable-seafood-picks
• http://www.davidsuzuki.org/publications/resources/2009/canadas-seafood-guide/
• http://www.blueocean.org
• http://www.seachoice.org
• http://wwf.ca/conservation/oceans
• http://www.ecologyaction.ca/files/images/file/Marine/Seafood_Traceability_in_Canada.pdf
• http://www.loblaw.ca/seafood

Additional links about sustainable fishing:

• http://www.msc.org
• http://www.msc.org/?i18nredirect=true&set_language=en
• http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/sustainable-durable/index-eng.htm
• http://www.oceanwise.ca

To learn more about ocean-friendly seafood, visit The Be Happy Pledge on Facebook:

• http://www.facebook.com/BeHappyFish?sk=app_202492326503113

Tū Hononga’s Journey

How One Whale Made It to the Top

After months of anticipation, planning and building, the big day finally arrived. I was on site early so as not to miss a moment, and as the 18-wheeler carrying Tū Hononga’s skull rounded the corner, the excitement started bubbling over.

Te Papa's conservation manager, Shane James, begins the Karakia by blowing into a Pukaea (kind of a Māori trumpet). Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

Tū Hononga (meaning “the connection”) is a male sperm whale whose entire skeleton will be displayed alongside the skeleton of a female, called Hinewainui, in the soon-to-open Whales Tohorā exhibition. Because Tū Hononga’s skull and jaw are so big, they are not able to get into the fourth-floor gallery by elevator. Another specimen and two panels are also too large. In order to get these enormous items in the front doors, through the atrium and into position on the fourth floor, the exhibition team, facilities department and numerous contractors had to remove doors, protect floors and build (from scratch) two complete hoisting systems.

The Canadian Museum of Nature has exhibited many travelling shows from all over the world, but never has this much preparation gone into a temporary exhibition.

A team of exhibition specialists from New Zealand’s Te Papa Tongarewa museum travel to every venue with the Whales Tohorā exhibition. They are also instrumental in the installation. I was honoured to be among the few who were there to witness the Karakia—a traditional Māori incantation—performed by a collection manager from Te Papa before the specimens were moved off the truck. Karakia are ceremoniously used to ensure a favourable outcome of important undertakings.

The skull was lifted, inch by inch, over each step in the museum's vestibule. Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

The skull only just passed through the doorway, even though the doors and frame had been removed. There was a collective sigh of relief once Tū Hononga's skull was inside the building. Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

Each item was then carefully lifted out of the moving truck, wheeled through a heated tent and through the front doors of the museum. Getting it up the first set of stairs required a manual hoist system, which was rigged to scaffolding. The latter was custom-built to fit into the small, narrow vestibule at the main entrance.

As the skull inched its way up the stairs, a dozen onlookers stood watching, uncertain whether the skull—wrapped in layers of insulation and a protective framework, and sitting upon a rolling platform—would pass through the doorway. In fact, it was the stairs that would trip up the process: the hoisting chains ran out a mere inch before the wheels of the platform could clear the top step. A forklift was enlisted to bring it up the extra inch, but they couldn’t find the right angle to approach the bottom of the platform without causing damage. Eventually the contractors used specialized chain blocks to winch the chains by hand, which gave the platform just enough lift to clear the top step.

Tū Hononga’s skull was the first item into the building, but it wouldn’t be hoisted until his jaw, a skeleton of a pygmy right whale, and two oversized panels were also brought into the building using the same process. Those items passed through rather uneventfully, the hoisting team having had the first tough experience to draw upon. Each item was then rolled up the ramp leading to the atrium, around the reception desk and into position in front of the grand staircase. Another team of riggers was waiting there to attach, balance, secure and eventually hoist the items up to the fourth floor.

Sperm whales (Physeter catodon) have been known to dive as deep as 3 km, but flying? This must be a first! Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

This way up ↑. Tū Hononga's jaw gets a lift from the first to the fourth floor. Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

The great male sperm whale skull, which weighs about 795 kg (1,750 lb.), was the first item into the building, but the last to be hoisted to the fourth floor. The anticipation was palpable.

As the final moments unfolded, many were already patting themselves on the back for a job well done, when a long, loud crunch sounded throughout the atrium (and believe me, that place echoes!). I did not need to look around to confirm: I already knew that all eyes were riveted on the skull, balanced on the edge of the fourth floor, hanging over the edge of a four-storey drop.

This is the worst possible moment for something to go wrong... and this is the moment when we heard a painfully loud crack! Image: Jennifer-Lee Mason © Canadian Museum of Nature

I still don’t know what the noise was, or how anyone else felt in that moment, because seconds later the skull was carefully and proudly being pulled onto the floor and into the gallery.

In those last moments of Tū Hononga’s journey to the top, I wondered if his spirit was pleased to see how many minds, hands and hearts had to come together to be able to display him to our visitors. Through this journey he exemplifies his given name: the connection.

A Whale of a Time

In the course of their lives, whales travel untold thousands of kilometres with a seemingly effortless, fluid motion. The density of water easily supports their enormous body, allowing them a graceful ease within the huge expanse of space that the ocean offers. Their momentous size and weight, already so difficult for us to imagine, is apparently inconsequential in their natural environment.

Alas, moving a scientifically and culturally important whale specimen around in the terrestrial world is in many ways the opposite. It is slow and laborious, and requires specialized methods and tools, as well as many days of careful planning. No one knows this better than the Canadian Museum of Nature!

These two sperm-whale (Physeter catodon) skeletons are a highlight of the special exhibition Whales Tohorā. Image: © Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

Having just prepared and mounted our own blue whale for our RBC Blue Water Gallery, we are now getting ready to play host to a spectacular exhibition from New Zealand, Whales Tohorā. The exhibition features many whale specimens that Canadians would never normally be able to see. And some of them are really rather, well, large.

Among the rare specimens and irreplaceable cultural artefacts in the exhibition is a pair of sperm whales—a male and female mounted together in a dramatic pose. The male sperm whale’s skull is the largest and heaviest single object in the exhibition. It will require some extraordinary feats before it will be ready for appreciation by our visitors. The skull travels on a trolley built specifically for it. Together, the skull and trolley measure 5.2 metres (17 ft.) in length and weigh 2200 kg (4,850 lb.).

Heritage mosaic on the floor of the museum's atrium will be covered for protection during the hoisting. Image: Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature

The skull will arrive at the museum in a truck, and that’s when the fun begins. As usual, the museum will close at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 5, 2012. This time, however, there will be teams of people, each with their own technical specialty, ready to pounce as soon as the last visitor has left the building.

One team will set up a 20′ × 30′ tent complete with propane heat at the front door of the old castle. That’s where the skull will brought into the building. There is no point bringing the skull and the three other oversized items to the loading dock, as they cannot fit in the freight elevators.

Another team will assemble custom scaffolding towers, hoisting beams and blocks over the historic stone stairs in the vestibule. Team three will remove the automated double doors and frame between the vestibule and the foyer. All the spaces in the building are sized to humans, not whales!

The museum's atrium. The specimens will be lifted to the fourth floor using a winch. The mosaic floor, including the area of the foyer that depicts a moose, will be given a protective cover for the occasion. Image: Chuck Clark © Chuck Clark

Team four will lay down almost 90 sheets of plywood to protect the magnificent mosaic floor wherever the skull will travel in our atrium. Team five will assemble the specially engineered hoisting platform that has been fabricated off-site for the purposes of hoisting the skull up through the atrium.

Team six will remove the heritage railing on the fourth-floor mezzanine. Team seven will remove the glass automated door and side panel at the entry to the fourth-floor east-side gallery, where Whales Tohorā will be exhibited.

All of these teams must have their work done that Sunday evening in preparation for the big day on Monday, February 6. “Hoisting Day” (as we call it) begins early.

Technical staff will start arriving at 6:30 p.m. The truck will pull up at 7:00 p.m. A large telescopic forklift will be waiting outside to take the skull off the truck and put it in the tent. The skull’s trolley features insulation and a protective frame. After all, it’s not just a large object, it’s a key museum specimen and has to be handled with great care and appropriate conservation standards. The tent is in place to protect the skull from whatever winter weather we can expect in the middle of February… It will also be covered by a cloth to protect it further during the entire operation.

From the tent, the skull is moved into the vestibule, where it will be rigged and hoisted over the stairs and landed on the protected atrium floor.

The support beams that have been installed at the atrium's ceiling. Image: Martin Leclerc © Canadian Museum of Nature

While all this is happening, the riggers are preparing for the main hoist up the atrium. If you are a regular visitor to the museum and an astute observer, you will have noticed two large grey “I” beams in the ceiling of the atrium contrasting with the delicate Victorian detailing of the skylights. The beams are attached to the skylight trusses and were put there in early January just for this day.

The riggers for the atrium hoisting will attach two 1.8-tonne (2-tn.) hoisting blocks to the beams and connect them to a sling 30 metres (98 ft.) below. Once everything is in place, the rigging is inspected and approved for use. We’re ready to go! The skull is strapped into the harness, and then it will take 15 to 20 minutes to reach the fourth floor. Not exactly a flying whale.

At the top of the atrium the skull will be rolled onto the mezzanine and through the opening to the gallery. The hoisting will be repeated three more times with other specimens until all the items that cannot fit in the freight elevator are in the gallery.

If only we could go home at this point! Everything has to be put back again before we open the museum to our visitors—doors and railings remounted, scaffolding and tent dismantled, plywood removed, platform disassembled and stored.

Once this is done, we can get on with the installation of the exhibition itself in the gallery, and the atrium will be back to its old self… until September, when we have to take it all out again!

Diorama Artist Clarence Tillenius

Remembering His Artistic Drive and Environmental Passion

by Luci Cipera and Carolyn Leckie

Clarence Tillenius, the renowned wildlife artist who created many of the treasured mammal dioramas at the Canadian Museum of Nature, died last week at the age of 98.

Clarence left a final Facebook posting:

Clarence Tillenius in front of the thinhorn-sheep (Ovis dalli) diorama during a visit to the museum in 2004. Image: Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature

I believe that there is in the universe an underlying rhythm, a stream of life common to all ages; that the work of an artist who could tap into that rhythm would be timeless, it would be understood in any age, since man himself is bound by, and responds to, the same rhythm as the animals.

When that rhythm calls me to a universe other than this one; I ask each of you, who wish to remember me, to look at my paintings or my dioramas. As long as my work is appreciated by the generations that follow, my work will have tapped into that rhythm and will be timeless; even thought I have now crossed that great Divide.

For us, these words truly capture the artistic drive and environmental passion of this amazing man. We met Clarence on a number of occasions while working to preserve and move the mammal dioramas (2003–2006) from one side of the “castle” to the other, during the museum’s massive renovation.

In the beginning, the museum wanted to demonstrate to Clarence that his dioramas were being well cared for. But as our paths continued to cross during the project, he proved to be extremely helpful in clarifying details about the complex construction of the dioramas and giving us a deeper understanding of the tremendous fieldwork required to prepare for the dioramas.

Clarence Tillenius painting the background of the thinhorn sheep (Ovis dalli) diorama in 1962. Image: Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature

Similarly, he provided information to other teams relating to the locations and intent of the dioramas, as well as the stories behind them.

At 90, when we first met him, this kind and gentle man was still actively painting and full of incredible stories of his life as a wildlife artist. At the heart of his stories were his deep appreciation for nature and his desire to bring nature to people so that they could enjoy it, understand it and care enough about it to value and preserve it.

It struck us as an amazing perspective, given the fact he grew up in a pioneering community, came of age in the Depression, lived through two world wars and then was painting dioramas in the ’50s and ’60s, when the modern industrial approach was to dominate the natural world. Clarence’s divergent perspective seemed to have come from growing up as a boy in northern Manitoba and actually seeing the “disappearance” of wildlife from the native prairie.

Listening to his stories left you equally amazed at the physical and artistic challenge of creating the dioramas, which are much larger than they appear. For example, the bison (Bison bison) diorama in our Mammal Gallery is 8.4 metres (28 ft.) wide and 4.8 m (16 ft.) high.

Clarence travelled to each remote location to study the animals in their habitat, collecting plants and making sketches before planning the details of each diorama.

Clarence Tillenius: "On my first visit to this bison range, the wardens told me: 'If you want to see the real interaction of the wolf packs and the buffalo herds, come in winter—we'll take you out in one of our big snowmobiles and let you see the action.' A couple of years passed before I was able to take up the invitation but when I did, I was given the royal treatment—on one occasion the wardens set me up in a pile of old logs and brush in a clearing and then drove a couple of hundred of bisons straight at the log pile while I was crouched in the middle of it and wondered what I had let myself in for. But the wardens knew their stuff and the proof is I am still here telling you about it.' Image: © Canadian Museum of Nature

This activity seems all the more amazing because in his 20s, a nearly fatal accident while building train tracks had taken his right arm—his painting arm. He learned to paint with his left hand and continued to work as an artist.

The result is a magical experience in which the audience is immersed in a wild place, as if having just happened upon the animals. As per Clarence’s plan, the longer you look, you are rewarded with ever more beauty and details—just like nature.

Clarence Tillenius: "When I arrived there in mid-February, the snow was already three and a half feet deep, so to find a painting site, the chief ranger and I traveled day after day on snowshoes in search. Because all hunting was strictly forbidden, the moose population had grown far beyond the capacity of the park—large though it is—to sustain them. This because the natural enemy of the moose—timber wolves—had long since been eradicated from the park and even the cougar (mountain lion) was thought to be long since extinct. However, two of the park rangers showed me unmistakable proof that at least one cougar still existed in the park, though they are such stealthy creatures that only the most dedicated seeker would have discovered their existence." Image: Martin Lipman © Canadian Museum of Nature

Our Science Was State-of-the-Art in the 1700s

This is the third post in a five-part series on Arctic flora research at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Join us as museum researcher Paul Sokoloff introduces the fieldwork and lab work involved in writing a new flora of the North American Arctic.

Each plant that we collect in the field (like that Oxytropis I got so excited about) goes into a clearly labelled plastic bag until we get back to camp. There, using a plant press—the state of the art back in the 1700s and changed very little today—we press and dry the plant for transport and long-term storage in a herbarium (a collection of dried plants). Further reading: an excellent description of the pressing and drying process.

Capitate lousewort (Pedicularis capitata), arranged for pressing in the field. Image: Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

In 2010, we brought back just shy of 1000 such plant specimens from our trip to Victoria Island, in the Northwest Territories. The year before that, we brought in 1000 as well. With the museum’s collecting legacy stretching back to the 1800s, and specimens donated by many generous collectors outside the museum, the numbers start to really add up.

The fruit of a single field season. Image: Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

Our last estimate puts the holdings of the Canadian Museum of Nature’s National Herbarium of Canada at more than 700 000 vascular plant samples, and that’s not even including the large collections of mosses and lichens.

So why keep all these dead plants glued to sheets anyways? In the inaugural post of this series, I mentioned that each herbarium sample becomes a record for our new flora. It goes much deeper than that: the National Herbarium of Canada, and all herbaria with Arctic collections, underpin the entire project.

We could not write this flora without them. These specimens provide the occurrence data by which we can plot the range of a species onto a map. Data on the habitat type and associated species, often found on the herbarium specimen, inform us about the ecology of the species.

However, the most important function of the collection is to establish and clarify the taxonomy of plants: the naming of natural evolutionary groups that we often call species. Through the examination of the morphology of an individual—the length and shape of the leaf or the microscopic structure of the flower, for instance—we can classify the plant.

University of Ottawa student Katya Boudko examines a species of Elymus (wildrye) using a microscope. Though the technology has improved, this is the same technique that botanists have used to classify plants for 300 years. Image: Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

A botanist examining a given specimen can assign a plant to a family, a genus and a species, each grouping (or taxon) being more morphologically similar than the last. Based on these increasingly fine morphological distinctions, a key for identifying a species based on shared physical characteristics can be written.

Pedicularis capitata mounted on a herbarium sheet ready to be filed in the herbarium. The label in the corner of the sheet contains data that includes the location where the plant was collected, the name of the collector, and the date when the collection was made. Image: Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

Ultimately, the herbarium is the reference by which a botanist can compare specimens and group them in this systematic manner. This is how we organize all known plant species, and in turn, our Arctic flora of Canada and Alaska.

Maintaining the collection permanently allows botanists to confirm the identity of specimens, correct a mistaken identification, re-evaluate the taxonomic boundaries of a species based on new data, or bring a new perspective to the group.

The truth is that botanists do sometimes disagree on what defines a species (fortunately, these are always civil interactions). However, the more a group of plants is looked at, examined and debated, the closer we can get to an understanding of the true evolutionary relationships within that group.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the recent advent of DNA sequencing and molecular systematics—which in some cases have upended the classification of entire groups. This however, is a story for my next instalment.

The National Herbarium of Canada. More than half a million vascular plant specimens are arranged here in systematic order, available for researchers to examine on site or through loans shipped all over the world. Image: Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

Do Iwi, Taonga and Motu Mean Anything to You?

Tere tohorā tere tangata—Where whales journey, people follow.

This Māori saying welcomes visitors to the spectacular Whales Tohorā exhibition, which comes to us from New Zealand after touring extensively with our neighbours to the south.

Some of the 153 exhibition panels. Image: © Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

You will have the opportunity to discover the exhibition yourself at the museum starting on March 2, but until then, I would like to explain briefly what went on behind the scenes to make things possible.

A magnificent ornamental comb (heru) made of whalebone, one of the many treasures (taonga) featured in the exhibition. 1800–1900, artist unknown. Collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa. Image: © Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2007

Step one: Translation. In New Zealand, they speak English and Māori. Here, it’s primarily English and French. So we translated the entire exhibition—texts, computer interactives, videos, the works. Wonder how many words that is? A little more than 35 000, and I’m pretty sure I missed a few.

Step two: Adaptation. As I mentioned, the exhibition comes to us from New Zealand. A number of Māori words are common usage in New Zealand, or at least understood by most non-Māori New Zealanders. Do iwi, taonga and motu mean anything to you? Do you know where to find Stewart Island and Doubtless Bay on a map? That is why we added a little extra information to help you make the most of the exhibition. What? Oh yes, I almost forgot. Iwi means peoples, tribe; taonga means something precious, a treasure; and motu, well, that means island.

Step three: Production. Because the exhibition was originally produced in English and Māori, we had to redo all of the interpretive panels. This involved changing the layout to include the French text, sometimes resizing the panels, and then reprinting the lot. And for how many panels, you ask? Wait; let me ask our graphic designer. How many panels in all, Annie? A hundred and fifty three, OK, thanks!

For the seven interactives, we replaced the Māori with French and tinkered around with the programming—a piece of cake! We also dubbed and subtitled all eleven videos, which was sometimes quite the laugh. Why? Just try pronouncing whakapapa. It’s not easy! The voice actors struggled a bit with the Māori language, but they did a very good job.

Above: One of the original, English-only exhibition panels. Below: The same panel after modification to include the French text. Image: Annie Thérien © Canadian Museum of Nature

And, believe it or not, this all has to be done before the exhibition’s arrival and installation in the museum—but that’s another kettle of fish. I’ll let my colleagues tell you about the next steps! Watch this space in the coming weeks.

Kia ora to you, dear readers. That is how to say hello, and thank you, in Māori. Its literal translation is “be well” or “be healthy”!