Ornithology: Collections

The ornithology program aims at documenting and interpreting the distribution, diversity, individual and geographic variation, systematics, and secondarily the ecology and behavior, of the birds of Alberta. The Royal Alberta Museum maintains the only public bird collection dealing with the birds of the province, and is the single most important collection of avian material in Alberta.
The ornithological collections consist of several research collections, a teaching collection for use by universities, community colleges, wildlife artists and the general public, and an interpretative collection for public programming. The Royal Alberta Museum currently holds approximately 35,000 avian artifacts and 9,000 slides documenting the birds of the province. A breakdown of the collection is:
Total | From Alberta | |
Skins | 10,000 | 7,000 |
Skeletons | 7,300 | 4,500 |
Tissues | 2,400 | 2,000 |
Eggs | 14,000 | 1,300 |
Mounts | 2,500 | 1,300 |
Slides | 8,400 | 4,200 |
For more information or to arrange access to the Collections, please contact the Curator, Ornithology.