Stuffed Gophers Bring New Museum To Life

Stuffed Gophers Bring New Museum To Life AG WORLD Ag World 19-5-19 A small Canadian village recently announced plans to open a first-of-its-kind museum that makes use of one of the region's most abundant resources - pocket gophers. The idea for a gopher museum was born a few years ago, when Torrington, Alberta, chose the gopher as its mascot. Townsfolk decided to open a museum and stock it with stuffed gophers depicting scenes from the village's past. It seemed like a sure-fire tourist attraction and, in fact, has already received press coverage all over the world. The museum, which is not open yet, has attracted no tourists but a lot of controversy. Here's what happened. Last spring, the community got a $9,000 government grant to go ahead with the 'stuffed gopher museum in an unoccupied 14 by 21-ft. building. It's scheduled to open next spring. "We' 11 be using stuffed gophers dressed up as villagers to depict Torrington as it was when Main Street was flush with businesses and there were a lot more farmers than there are now. Most people think it's a cute and novel idea," explains Phyllis Wilson, who runs a local doll museum and is a member of the local tourism committee. "But we'll have the scientific end, too. We'll have in-formative displays explaining how gophers live in the ground, reproduce, damage the crops we grow around here, and also how cattle break legs stepping in gopher holes. So it's going to be educational as well as entertaining." When the museum opens, visitors will be able to peer down into gopher holes to view the stuffed rodents posed in human activities, such as reading stories to the kids. There'll also be a replica of Torrington in earlier days with stuffed gophers dressed up as citizens. After a Canadian TV network aired a re-port on the proposed museum, Torrington's mayor received a letter from People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which is an extremist animal rights group, in the U.S. It demanded that the project stop. Then, after a recent article about the museum in the prestigious "London Times" newspaper, British animal rights extremists picketed the Canadian embassy in Lon-don in protest. Wilson and others are flabbergasted. "All we wanted to do was start some-thing that would bring people to our village," she says. "If this species was on the brink of extinction I could see where they'd have some problems with the museum. But that's hardly the case." Despite the controversy, Wilson is determined the museum will open on schedule next spring. She's also confident that the museum will be a huge success. That's thanks to the "million dollars worth of free -publicity" animal rights extremists have given it, she says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Phyllis Wilson, Box 37, Torrington, Alberta, Canada TOM QBO (ph 403-631-3787).

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