Endangered Species : Budget Crisis Threatens Natural History Museum Displays

As a small child, Art Evans, a self-described “cheerleader for bugs,” believed he was alone in his obsession with creepy-crawly things.

Then, as a sixth-grader, he visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History in Exposition Park. There, amid the beetles and freeze-dried termites, he met people who shared his fascination with arthropods, people who answered his questions and fed his curious mind.

Today, Evans is the one with the answers. As the director of the museum’s 3,500-specimen Insect Zoo, he does for today’s youngsters what yesterday’s entomologists did for him. But lately, as the county budget crisis has tangled the museum in a web of financial insecurity, Evans worries about the future.

“This institution played a critical role in getting me started,” he said the other day as he showed off the zoo’s fire millipedes, cockroaches and pink-toed tarantulas--live specimens that may soon be off limits to the public. “I wonder where these kids will go.”

Evans’ fears are not unfounded. Under a proposed budget being considered by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Insect Zoo and the adjoining Discovery Center--two of the most popular museum displays--would be closed.

According to Mark Rodriguez, the museum’s chief deputy director, $3.1 million would be stripped from the natural history museum’s $11.3-million budget--a 27% reduction. Rodriguez said that such a funding shortfall would cut museum operating hours in half--to three days a week--and would force yet another round of layoffs. Earlier this year, 47 staff positions were cut. This time, he said, 50 more positions could be lost.

Admission to the museum is $5 for adults, $3.50 for students and seniors and $2 for children over 4. Toddlers get in free. There is no plan to increase the admission fees.

“We’re going to wind up basically maintaining the barest of minimums to preserve some exposure to the public,” said Rodriguez, who said exhibit renovations would also be curtailed.

In an attempt to persuade county leaders to spare their institution, which draws more than a million visitors a year, museum officials have reached out to the public. “We need your help!” began a letter received by museum members this week. The letter asked members to sign and mail a neon yellow postcard to Supervisor Ed Edelman, the county board chairman.

“The Natural History Museum is a greatly needed educational and cultural resource,” the postcard says. “As a taxpayer of Los Angeles County, I oppose any further budget cuts to the museum.”

Edelman is sympathetic to the plight of the natural history museum and is searching for a way to keep it open one more day a week, said Joel Bellman, the supervisor’s spokesman.

“The cultural amenities that make life worth living in L.A. are something he’s spoken often of. Why live in L.A. if you can’t avail yourself of all these rich cultural offerings?” Bellman said.

But with public safety, health care and welfare grants also on the table, the museum is facing stiff competition for funds.

That is awful news to Manhattan Beach resident Joan Stein Jenkins and her children Sarah, 8, and Isaac, 5. The other day, as they often do, the threesome visited the Insect Zoo to marvel over the Venus flytraps and play with the zoo’s bio-scanner--a magnifying camera that provides a close-up look at daddy longlegs spiders and other critters.

“Museums can be dead. But this is a museum filled with life and kids,” Stein Jenkins said as she stood on the mezzanine where the zoo is located. “We meet friends here. If we have questions, we come here. We would miss it terribly.”

Her children kept moving, lured onward by the Jerusalem crickets and a wall of butterflies. But Stein Jenkins had more to say.

“This is a gateway, a place to learn how to ask questions and see worlds beyond your own,” she said. “If they want to stop gangs and keep children from having nothing to do, this is the way to do it.”

Downstairs in the Discovery Center, a hands-on gallery of fossils, furs and other natural and cultural artifacts, Nanette Dahlen-Wan was keeping an eye on her kids Jessica, 10, and Gregory, 7. The resident of the Orange County community of Rossmoor called the proposed closure of the center and the Insect Zoo tragic.

“Where else can they come and see all of this and experience it in such a warm atmosphere?” she asked as her children eyeballed a huge stuffed polar bear.

Karen DeSmet held her 7-year-old son, Alex, who was tickling her neck with a feather.

Cutting the museum “will really be a shame. It’s pretty shortsighted,” said DeSmet, who works for the Social Security Administration in Valencia. For all the money that might be saved now, she said, “we’ll only spend the money later on when these kids are adults.”

Gay Speer was thinking much the same thing. As the Discovery Center’s coordinator, she believes fiercely in the power of education. Learning how to learn is the first step, she says, so she works hard to help her visitors find out things for themselves.

Instead of warning children not to touch, Speer has posted signs that say, “Please pet the animals.” Exotic costumes are displayed not behind glass, but in a child-sized closet where kids can easily try them on. Whether feeding the Pacu fish or scratching the belly of Harry the hairless rat, visitors to the Discovery Center are encouraged to be curious--and never told to be quiet.

“You’re not supposed to be quiet here. You’re supposed to get excited,” Speer said. “All the rules of, ‘Sit still! Do this! Do that!’ are thrown out the window. That’s how children learn.”

She cannot believe that the county’s proposed budget would close all this down. Already, limited funding means that the Discovery Center is open only five hours on weekdays, six hours on weekends. To save on the cost of drawing paper, Speer has purchased miniature chalkboards. She hands out her business cards only when necessary--it may not be possible to replace them.

“My budget is so minimal that if something breaks, I can’t fix it,” she said. “Now we’ve been told they’re only going to clean the office once a week. And we have people changing diapers in here!”

But a tight budget is better than none. Speer is still hoping that her program will survive.

“I have hope and faith that it will come through, because people need it,” she said quietly. “This is something I’m actually praying on.”