The Skeleton Crew

Near Moulton and Alicia parkways in Aliso Viejo, the county owns a piece of ground overgrown with low brush. But some day, if the county’s general parks plan holds up, it will be home to a sparkling new natural history museum, with hall after hall of paleontological wonders from our own backyard.

That’s the future, however, and who can say just how many years of political finagling we might have to endure before then? If you want to see any of the county’s natural history up close now, you can go to a new private museum just a couple miles away, at 28373 Alicia Parkway in Laguna Niguel.

The all-volunteer Orange County Natural History Assn. held a grand opening Friday for its museum’s new location--its third in five years.

If you’ve been to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, or to any in other major urban centers, you might find it hard to think of this one in the same species. Instead of cavernous rooms suitable for housing giant mammals of the past, this one fits the county’s millions of years of natural history into a 24-by-60-foot trailer.

For a $1 donation--parking’s free--you can tour its exhibits in detail in less than an hour. And when you’re finished, you might well be left yearning for the time when the county gets serious about making public its many years of paleontological and archeological exhibits.

But perhaps we’re missing out if we think of this small endeavor only in terms of what it lacks.

Because it does give you more than just a glimpse of the past. And none of it would be there were it not for a small

group of volunteers devoted to educating us about what the county was like before humans found their way here.

Steve Conkling, a paleontologist who is also president of the Natural History Assn., acknowledges that this museum can’t begin to show what’s been unearthed since serious digging began in the county 21 years ago.

“This is just an ice cube off the Titanic’s iceberg,” he said. “We would love to have room for more. But for now, we’re fortunate to have what we have.”

By way of background, the association is an outgrowth of a previous group called the Natural History Foundation. After receiving some hefty grants for its collection, the foundation went bankrupt.

The association’s members are quick to distance themselves from those responsible for the foundation’s financial woes. The association was formed in 1992 and, the next year, put together a small museum in Laguna Hills on space loaned to it by local developer Howard Adler.

But Adler sold the property, and, two years ago, the association had to find another location. It eventually wound up in a mini-mall near Mission San Juan Capistrano. But when the mall was sold, the association couldn’t come to terms on a lease. Once again, it had to move.

The county came to its rescue. The new trailer is located at a site operated by the county Harbors, Beaches and Parks Division near the Gate One entrance to Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park.

I would have thought the mall location better because of the draw of tourists from the mission. But Conkling argues in favor of the new place:

“At the mall, people weren’t really coming in to see natural history; they were there to shop and just happened to take us in. Now, we’ll get people who are coming here specifically because they’re interested in what we have to offer.”

Also, it gives the Natural History Assn. a stronger tie to the county. That happens to be important because, right now, the nonprofit group is bidding to become the county’s sole handler for its huge warehouse of fossils and artifacts.

It’s only one of numerous bidders, however, and some experts are pushing for an independent crew. (The private company Conkling is associated with has a contract to do the paleontological excavation for the local toll-road agency.)

Few seem to doubt the county has a pretty bad track record for planning a home for its illustrious historical pieces. And we’ll see a flurry of political sniping before we reach our goal. But these heady issues don’t carry much meaning for many of those who attended Friday’s grand opening.

People like the Cub Scouts of Troop 619 from Mission Viejo. Scout leaders Sue Kouba and her husband Jeff called their afternoon outing there a joy. The Scouts sat down later and drew their own pictures of the things they had seen.

“What impresses them is that all of this history is from right here in Orange County,” Sue Kouba said.

Some things impressed me too. Archeologist Gary Hurd showed me a mussel shell thousands of years old, dug up in a recent excavation right off Alicia Parkway, and tried to explain how chemical testing on the shell’s bands can tell us the temperature of the water it came from. I didn’t have to comprehend any of that to be astounded by it.

Inside the trailer you can find stuffed hawks, eagles and owls, as well as million-year-old whales and dolphins re-created by their excavated bones. You can even hold a friendly live rosy boa (part of the boa constrictor family) found in the local foothills. Or admire a myriad of fossils.

A trailer isn’t where we’d like to be with our natural history findings. But for now, perhaps it will do its primary job, to whet the public’s appetite to push for more to come.

*

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com