Conserving conservation: Field notes from an animal archive

In 1997 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) opened a museum, archive, and history office at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. FWS staff have tried simultaneously to chronicle the history of the agency in an education program and a new archive/museum. Working with artifacts from the history of wildlife biology has reinforced the connections between conserving creatures and conserving history. Both the history of the FWS and the value in sharing this history are slowly coming into focus.