Remarkable cause for celebration at UM. (Is "remarkable" the right word?)
I once observed a western university storage room reported by the biology chair as containing >10,000 bullsnakes from a single state. I was disgusted and dismayed at such - especially given the general opposition to captive breeding and general keeping of herptiles. I am not opposed to the general principle of such specimen collections within limits - but the numbers of preserved animals is staggering. Sadly, it remains an academic badge of success to proclaim the number of dead specimens one has in the "collection".
Readers here should consider the number of euthanized reptiles and amphibians contained in all the universities, museums, zoos and other facilities.
"The (UM) museum this fall acquired tens of thousands of reptile and amphibian specimens from Oregon State University, many of which are snakes."
“I’m fairly confident we’ll have the largest snake collection in the world,” he said."
"Schneider has yet to complete the painstaking process of cataloging the new material, but estimates it contains around 30,000 snakes. He said that would give Michigan a total of between 65,000 to 70,000 of the slithering vertebrates, surpassing collections at the Smithsonian in Washington, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the University of Kansas."
"A number of the newly acquired jars contain both snakes and litters of their newborns"
"Schneider said he and his colleagues have noticed renewed excitement in team members who staff the university’s 153,375-square-foot (14,249-square-meter) Research Museums Center, where the specimens are housed."
“Since these specimens arrived, people are very, very, very enthusiastic and supportive”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...nake-104214946