Museum in Bonn Koenig Museum wants to expand further
BONN · The Koenig Museum in Bonn held its open day on Sunday. Hundreds of children and their parents or grandparents accepted the invitation and went on small expeditions into the animal kingdom free of charge.
Stroke the astonishingly soft fur of an Asian leopard, hold a fire salamander in your hand or make cats and swans out of folded paper: there were plenty of opportunities to get closer to animals from all over the world at the Koenig Museum on Sunday. Hundreds of children and their parents or grandparents started small expeditions into the animal kingdom at the open day.
During short, guided tours, scientist shared insider knowledge on individual exhibitions and allowed a look behind the scenes of the research museum.
The colourful landscape habitat panoramas and display cases sometimes make you forget that research is carried out at Adenauerallee 160. In future, the research museum could become even more important nationwide. As director Wolfgang Wägele told the GA, the Zoological Research Museum, as a member of the Leibnitz Association, is planning to build a third research centre for bio-diversity monitoring. Up to nine professorial positions with around 50 scientific staff could be created in Bonn for this purpose.
Frightening news of insect deaths
“News of insect deaths has shocked the research sector and shown that we need something like this,” says Wägele. Monitoring procedures have already been developed at the Koenig Museum that automatically collect and make available large amounts of data on animal and plant numbers.
Only technical solutions can obtain the large amounts of data necessary for reliable, quantifiable predictions on the development of biodiversity. “This would be a biological counterpart to the corresponding institutions for climate research and an excellent addition to the sustainability cluster in Bonn,” says Wägele. However, it is still open whether the research centre will come to Bonn.
Concrete expansion plans
Other expansion plans are already more concrete. The new building for the Research Centre for Molecular Biodiversity Research is ready to start. The soil investigations at the Poppelsdorf site have been completed, says Wägele. The around 30 scientists are expected to be able to move from the cramped cellar rooms on Adenauerallee in 2021. A merger with the Centre for Natural History in Hamburg is also well advanced, confirms Wägele.
(Original text: Martin Wein. Translation: kc)
