Rotorua Museum wins Museums Aotearoa national award
8 April 2014
Rotorua Museum has won the Best Museum Project - Activity' Award at the prestigious 2014 Museums Aotearoa Awards, for its On the Wing - urban release of the New Zealand falcon' project.
The Museum, together with Wingspan National Bird of Prey Centre, worked in partnership on the On the Wing project, to help secure the future of kārearea (New Zealand falcon). This was the first ever urban release of a threatened species in New Zealand.
The project involved three three-week old falcon chicks (2 males and 1 female) being transferred from Wingspan on 16 December 2013, into a special hack box (nesting box) on the roof of Rotorua Museum, where they were fed daily by Museum staff. A special exhibition On the Wing was developed to provide visitors with more information about the falcon release project and the work Wingspan does. A live falcon cam' also enabled visitors to see what the chicks were up to in their nesting box.
Early in January the nesting box was opened and the young falcons were released. In the days and weeks following their release, Museum visitors and visitors to the wider Government Gardens environment had the rare opportunity to see the young falcons up close as they learnt to fend for themselves.
The project engaged more than 50 volunteers to track the falcons from dawn until dusk every day over a period of several weeks. Visitors came from all over New Zealand and the world, to see these rare birds up close. A number of events and a falcon photo competition were also run as part of the project.
This nationally significant, collaborative, landmark project was a great example of a regional museum thinking out of the box, developing local partnerships and engaging the community through innovative and diverse approaches.
In making the award to Rotorua Museum, the judges said that they were impressed by "the on-going 'falcon-ness' which is pervading Rotorua".
The award is the latest in a very successful 12 months for Rotorua Museum, which has seen them win the Attractions & Hospitality' category in the 2013 Westpac Rotorua Business Excellence Awards, a Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence award, and be named runner-up in the Trustpower Spirit of Rotorua Community Awards.