Extinction: How Our Museum Collections Reflect Our Planet's Changing Biodiversity

Shropshire Museums has commissioned a series of short films exploring Shropshire Museums’ Natural Science Collections with Emma-Kate Lanyon (Curator).

Extinction is a natural phenomenon predicted by Darwin in his theory of evolution. Shropshire Museums’ Natural Science Collections give a unique insight into extinction events, why they happen and their effect. In this film, we will explore the different types of extinction event and how our collections illustrate these.

The rapid industrialisation of the Victorian period started our current climate crisis. Today, extinctions are occurring hundreds of times faster than they would naturally. The impact of this global event can be seen locally in changes to the biodiversity of Shropshire which can be traced in 170-year record provided by the museum collections.