More About the Museum
The Cumberland Island Museum was incorporated in 1985 to assure the protection and maintenance of the library, archival materials, and natural history collections of Carol Ruckdeschel and C. Robert Shoop after their lives, as well as items donated by other individuals. These materials and collections serve as resources both now and in the future for scholars, who will find most of the information and material available on Cumberland Island and much of the Southeast Coast.
Theses, doctoral dissertations, government publications and reports, maps and aerial photographs, letters and notes of biologists and collectors of the past, in addition to the specimens, provide a comprehensive basis for all types of historical and biological studies of the island.
Specimen Collection
The large specimen collection has been assembled from animals found dead on the island and nearby mainland, allowing biologists to have access to the biological history of the island and coastal plain. The collections and museum materials are available for use by qualified researchers, as is the case with other similar facilities.
Unlike some museums, The Cumberland Island Museum does not have exhibits or displays, but simply houses and curates the research materials. Nevertheless, visitors can see preserved specimens, utilize the library, or view the many types of materials. A well-equipped laboratory is utilized for specimen preparation and various laboratory activities. Equipment for field studies is also available for researchers.
The Cumberland Island Museum building is climate-controlled and regularly fumigated to assure proper housing of all materials. Costs of the operation, including insurance, are borne by private donations, grants, research contracts, a gift shop, and newsletter subscriptions. No salaries are paid, hence operating costs are minimized.
A Board of Directors is responsible for all aspects of the Museum and will oversee the movement of the holdings to appropriate research museums after the lives of the current curators. That way, future scholars will have access to the Museum resources of a similar type (for example, natural history specimens) in one place and thereby be much more efficient in their studies.
Creighton Cutts, Museum Associate, has been involved with the museum since its inception and continues to participate in many supporting activities.
Volunteer Internships
Individualized volunteer internship programs during the past few years have proved valuable to both the individuals and the Museum. The programs have ranged from routine museum curatorial duties and cataloging, to independent or collaborative studies. Those individuals of college age or older have gained the most from the internships; consequently, we no longer accept younger interns. Several of the past interns have gone into quality graduate programs and research positions around the world.
Museum Location
The Museum building is presently located in The Subdivision on the north end of Cumberland Island. Access is limited by distances involved and the lack of transportation. Regardless, many visitors are able to reach the facilities. Researchers may, by prior arrangement, be transported to the Museum for studies.
Since there are no telephones nor regular mail service, make arrangements far enough in advance to complete details of a visit at least a week before arrival. We pick up mail only once each week.
Ongoing research at the Museum includes regular beach surveys for stranded vertebrates; responses to radio and pager messages of sea turtle and marine mammal strandings, including necropsies of the animals and preparation of museum specimens; monitoring colonial nesting birds; amphibian monitoring; alligator feeding studies; tracking salamander movement; and opportunistic studies of plants, reptiles and mammals. Collaborative studies with biologists at the Smithsonian Institution, University of Rhode Island, University of California-Berkeley, and Georgia Southern University add to the scientific milieu of the Museum.
Some confusion in museum names has developed since the recent establishment of the Cumberland Island National Seashore Museum in St. Marys, Georgia. That museum is an entirely separate entity, devoted mostly to cultural history, and run by the National Park Service. It will soon be open to visitors.
Museum Newsletter
The CI Museum Newsletter is published quarterly and covers activities of the quarter in more detail than the web site. Items of interest dealing with National Park Service activities and general island happenings are also included. For a donation of $15 or more your name will be placed on the mailing list. Donations are tax deductible as allowed by law.
Contact us at:
The Cumberland Island Museum
P.O. Box 796
St. Marys, GA 31558