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Wildlife Act 1953

General provisions

55: Keeping of specimens in museums

You could also call this:

“Museums can keep protected dead animals if they follow the rules and keep good records.”

The Director-General can let a public museum have dead animals that are protected. You need to know the museum must keep a record of each animal, including where it came from and how it died. The museum must let authorised officers look at this record and copy it if they want to.

The Director-General can give the museum permission to keep certain animals, and this permission can be for a specific animal or for all animals. This permission lasts until the Director-General says it does not apply anymore. However, if the museum thinks an animal was taken illegally, they cannot keep it, even if they have permission.

If a museum has permission to keep protected animals, the person in charge of the museum can let ornithologists have the bodies of protected sea birds that have died naturally or been accidentally killed. The Director-General decides what conditions the ornithologists must follow. You can find more information about the laws that apply to protected animals in the Conservation Act 1987.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM278104.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Conservation Arts and culture > Heritage protection
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Part 5 General provisions

55Keeping of specimens in museums

  1. The Director-General may from time to time authorise in writing the controlling authority of any public museum to have in possession the dead bodies of any species of absolutely or partially protected wildlife or of any game, subject to the following conditions:

  2. the controlling authority shall keep a register showing each animal held, the name of the person from whom it was received, the area from which it was received, and the cause of death of the animal;
    1. the register shall be available for inspection at all reasonable times by authorised officers of the Department, who shall be entitled to make copies of entries in the register; and
      1. any authorised officer of the Department shall be entitled at all reasonable times to enter the museum and seize the body of any animal held otherwise than in accordance with an authority under this section.

        1. Any authority under subsection (1) may be general or may relate to specified species of animals or to a specified animal, and shall continue in force according to its tenor until revoked by written notice from the Director-General to the controlling authority of the museum: provided that no general authority under this section shall apply with respect to the keeping in possession of the body of any animal that the controlling authority has reason to suspect was taken contrary to the provisions of this Act.

        2. The officer in charge of a public museum the controlling authority of which holds a general authority given under this section may from time to time authorise ornithologists to have in possession, subject to such conditions as the Director-General prescribes, the bodies of absolutely or partially protected sea birds that have died from natural causes or been accidentally killed.

        Notes
        • Section 55(1): amended, on , by section 65(1) of the Conservation Act 1987 (1987 No 65).
        • Section 55(2): amended, on , by section 65(1) of the Conservation Act 1987 (1987 No 65).
        • Section 55(3): amended, on , by section 65(1) of the Conservation Act 1987 (1987 No 65).