H A Gass Forest Museum, Coimbatore
A huge stuffed Gaur and the above leopard welcomes you at the H A Gass Forest Museum in Coimbatore. This museum is located inside the Forest College premises at R.S.Puram. I must say, it is a huge campus with a lot of greenery. Like the IIT Campus in Chennai, this one is also like a mini forest in the heart of a city.
The building was constructed in the beginning of last century, with iron pillars supporting it from different directions. Burma Teak has been used exhaustively, like all the buildings of those times and even the steps are still wooden. That’s a stark reminder of how much connection this museum has to the woods!
The arrangement of exhibits in itself is a treat to the eye! There are two floors – a ground floor and first floor filled with all sort of exhibits – Stuffed birds/ animals, reptiles, plants, samples of the various types of tree wood, skeletons, weapons, models of houses made of wood, forest ranger uniform, and almost everything else found in a forest.
The above stuffed photo is of a bird called The Great Indian Hornbill. There were many more stuffed birds in the museum. It seems the museum started due to the enthusiasm of one Englishman called H A Gass in around 1905. Most of the exhibits were from his personal collections back then. It seems a lot of it was lost during the World War II . But later on, the collections were gradually increased.
There were a lot of informational posters on ecology, forestry, nature conservation, renewable sources of energy etc. The below poster for example says this : “Is the best way to protect a natural area to seal it off in a closed jar from the outside human world? Sooner or later, such a policy can destroy the area it was intended to protect! Ecological and sociological pressures – both inside and outside – eventually may shatter the reserve. MAB emphasizes man’s partnership with nature. A reserve is (should be?) open and interacts with its region. The local people can be its guardians.”
Taking a shot at the national conservation parks, and human attitude towards animals at the same time? But there is a point – some of the conservation parks have actually seen a decline in wild animal population it was set up to conserve!
The weapons used to hunt, were displayed alongside with everything else. Have a look at those two long guns just above the window. Wonder how people even carried it, leave alone shooting with it!
The size of this Bengal vulture was daunting! It was kept right above my face, and looking up I was intimidated a bit, to say the least 🙂 I thought this was the best exhibit, especially its placement location!
Destination Infinity
There is an inception of the idea to tour this place after reading and viewing this article. Thanks for sharing to the readers.
Oh good, there are lot more places in Coimbatore about which I have written in the category – https://destinationinfinity.org/category/places-and-photos/coimbatore/ Do have a look at it, if you plan to come.
Destination Infinity
Wow, the place looks very interesting indeed! I wonder when I will get a chance to visit Coimbatore!
Most people here do not know about the tourist places around coimbatore! Had to pick up clues from books, Internet etc. Do visit once Nita, I guess this place should be very different from Western India.
Destination Infinity
again a wonderful set of pictures about an interesting place DI 🙂 🙂 That eagle for sure looks intimidating…
That vulture is bigger than what you can see in the photo. I should have given a caption “Objects in the photo are bigger than how they appear” next to the photo! 🙂
Destination Infinity
Interesting place,loved the great indian hornbill 🙂
The full sized photo makes it look very big, but the vulture was much bigger than the hornbill. Its an interesting bird with a huge beak!
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Wow! This is “A Discovery of Coimbatore”
Thank you!
Yeah, now I am planning to discover the towns around Coimbatore 😀
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The Bengal vulture is really scary.. the whole place must be little creepy right.. but very interesting collection from the looks of it.. there are so many museums and interesting places in Coimbatore.. thanks for such informative posts 🙂
There are two more museums in Coimbatore on my list, which I may drop. Lets see what else I can get to click in this place….
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This place is looking similar to Egmore Museum in Chennai!
I have been to Egmore museum, but then I was very young! Don’t remember much really. Now that looks like a perfect place to go very soon 🙂
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I have be very impressed with this museum it remembers my child days ,,really awesome….
Yeah, the museum was awesome. I just wish that I could have spent more time reading all the posters there…
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